


nom de scéne, nom de plume

by Zaphirite



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: ALL the UST, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Anxiety Disorder, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, First Time, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, No Magic AU, Roleplay, Secret Identity, The Hawkeye Initiative, Verbal Abuse, accidental kinks, anime ruins everything, disguises, eventual identity reveals, in which the Miraculous heroes are protags of a series of novels by Marinette, love square shenanigans, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaphirite/pseuds/Zaphirite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette just needed money quick to replace her stolen laptop and sewing equipment during the first month of university. A writing competition with a cash prize was her lucky ticket into something much bigger.</p>
<p>Months later, enter Lady Coccinelle, newly published author of the Miraculous romance novel series. </p>
<p>Adrien was trying to prove to his father he could earn and live on his own when he gets hurt in a bad accident and wrecks his moped. A chance meeting with a man who offers him a job where he could stay anonymous was the key to meeting the love of his life.</p>
<p>Enter the nameless cover model for Chat Noir, one of the two protagonists in Lady Coccinelle's current work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marinette: Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> so, welcome to the Romance Novel AU! What started off as a crack thought was ridiculously encouraged by my beta (isadorator here and isadorator/ladrienintensifies on tumblr, SHE DESERVES ALL THE APPRECIATION FOR MOTIVATING ME TO START THIS GO CHECK HER OUT) and three months later here we are. Lots of embarrassing shenanigans and ridiculous book excerpts to ensue.
> 
> There will be some serious content in later chapters as noted by the tags, and those chapters will be marked with content warnings at the beginning. 
> 
> find me on tumblr at CrispyPata!

Marinette wasn't really much of a morning person. Her best work was done when the sun wasn't constantly changing the lighting of her workspace and when it wasn't a problem to get too into things and miss class on accident. 

This morning, however, woke her up with a sluggish fog in her head and Alya’s gentle snoring from the bean bag next to her. 

Marinette rubbed her eyes and blinked furiously as she took in her apartment  living room around her. The blinds were left open last night and they let the bright light of a clear sky cast lines across the living room floor. Alya was somehow still fast asleep with one ray of light reflecting off her glasses on her face and onto the ceiling. A pillar of pink light ran in the middle of the table where the sun struck the half-filled wine bottle standing on it. 

She reached out to the table and picked up the books that were the cause of their late celebration. 

It was still a funny secret to her every time she read the rose-colored text at the bottom of the front cover - “Lady Coccinelle”. She laughed softly to herself as she tilted the cover to see it glitter in the light.

A low groan came from next to her as Alya finally came to life again and turned away from the intruding sun. Marinette leaned over and shielded her with one of the books that her friend then snatched out of her hand to look at. 

Alya held it over her head, staring at the green cover as she blinked back into consciousness. 

“All this for a sewing machine.”

“And my embroidery machine, my sewing kit, and my laptop, remember?” Marinette slumped forward onto the arm of her love seat before getting up to head to the kitchen. 

Alya opened the book, flipping through the pages slowly. “Remember you sold my love life to the world to replace them all?”

“I think my hypothetical godchildren would love me for writing the romance of their parents.” She called back over the sound of frying eggs. 

“Ah, right, how did our first real encounter go again?” Marinette could hear the quicker fumble of pages before Alya’s voice continued. 

“ _ The flames drew closer and closer, and the detective only had the faintest of moments to see her life flash before her eyes when she heard the wood of the building creak and snap. Her eyes wrenched shut from the bright flames and she gave one last desperate scream that she didn't know anything - _

_ Suddenly it was cool and dark. She opened her eyes to see a tall figure in front of her, pushing back at the flames with a barrier surrounding them.  _

_ The person turned their head to look at her once they had it under control before another wave of fire lit the room, and all she could see was the green, familiar suit she had been chasing after and hauntingly gold eyes that instantly looked away to focus on the attack.” _

“Close enough.” Marinette shrugged from the kitchen. 

“We got locked in a cage at the zoo while hiding when someone let the animals loose.” The redhead finished with a sharp close of the book. 

“Okay, but which story are you going to tell them that won't make them afraid of going to the zoo?”

Marinette wandered back to the couch with a plate of bread and eggs and set them on the table in front of them. Alya sat up and grabbed the black book that was left on the armrest of the couch. She studied this cover with an appreciative nod. 

“They definitely got a better model for Chat than they did for me and Diamond Turtle.”

“Okay but you got a dramatic action cover surrounded by flames while he's just pulling a pin up pose, I don't see where you're complaining.”

The redhead pushed the cover into Marinette’s face. “You can't deny that your new model’s got an ass in the top tenth percentile.”

Marinette just snatched the book out of her hands and put it back on the table, rolling her eyes.

“So when are you heading back again?”

Alya stretched her arms above her head before she started to eat. “I guess in a couple hours. I don't need to be at the station until later tonight for a swing shift. How about you, when is Tikki wanting to meet up?”

“Tomorrow. We’re meeting at the bakery again, so I need to leave early from here. She wants to see my outline for book number two, which I still need to name, ugh.” The girl flopped over on her back and slowly chewed the piece of bread hanging from her mouth. 

Alya wasn't too far away, but her school and internship at a big news station was enough of a distance that she could only come to visit on weekends if her day was open enough for that much train travel. That initial night a year and a half ago of writing The Thousand Year Hunt - or in reality, drunkenly re-writing Alya and Nino’s relationship as a superhero tale - was a miracle in itself to have worked out this well to continue the series. Now that the next book was going to be released in a few days, every possible moment they could get together was spent planning out the series’ magical universe. Between Alya’s love for superheroes and Marinette’s fantastical ideas and character designs, what was a one-off story now bloomed into a ridiculously vast world.

Not really the classic recipe for a romance novel, but maybe that’s what made it popular - a little something for everyone’s interests. 

Alya gave her a tight hug before she left Marinette’s apartment, making her promise to let her know how things went as soon as Tikki was done with her so they could get a head start before the new school semester got heavy.

Marinette hummed in thought as she shut the door, looking at the black book still laying on the coffee table where she left it. The initial shock of being asked to write another book by the publishing company had long since subsided, but it was still so strange to see the results of countless post-it notes strewn across her desk and doodles in the margins of her sketch book come together in something so real and concrete. 

Yes, it was as cliche and trashy as any other romance novel you’d find on the shelf of your local bookstore, but the strange amount of popularity her first book gained out of thin air was the lucky strike everyone involved was needing. 

Naming the next book in her story’s world “Lucky Strikes at Midnight” was the easiest part of it. 

The hardest part was actually  _ writing _ everything her overactive mind came up with. 

Marinette picked up the book and laid back on her love seat, flipping to a random page. She purposefully skipped over some of the photo inserts.

_ “I'm honestly a little offended, my Lady. After all this time we spent together, how close we’ve been, you can't pick me apart from a copycat.”  _

_ The blond hero rested his arms on top of the staff on his shoulders, huffing a breath out in fake disbelief. Long, toned arms flexed and relaxed under the material of his leather suit.  _

_ Ladybug sauntered up to where he stood, acting coy. She fluttered her lashes at him as she cupped her cheek in her palm, letting the tip of a pinky rest between her parted lips.  _

_ “And I'm offended that you think so little of me, my kitten. After everything we’ve been through...you know almost everything about me besides what's under my mask. How could you say I don't know the same about you? About what makes you tick?” _

_ Her hands came up and gripped his wrists against his staff as she shoved him against the wall nearby, pinning him down. She was smaller but just as strong as him. His wrists wriggled in her grasp only to get comfortable, as he was curious what game she was playing this time.  _

_ Sapphire eyes twinkled with mischief as she looked up at him.  _

_ “Or would you have purr-fured that I test this on every double of you that I meet?” _

_ Her soft lips pressed against the edge of his suit against his neck. Again and again she continued her trail from his ear to the apple of his throat, relishing in the way his pulse jumped under her light touch.  _

_ A growl strained from his throat, earning a breathy laugh from her that dusted across his pulsepoint. His lips parted in a frown to reveal the tips of sharpened canines as he heaved out a strained breath.  _

_ Ladybug ignored his responses and leaned in closer to his neck, catching the zipper hidden under the bell of his collar between her teeth and pulled it down past his collarbone. She let her body bow back into his line of sight with her hands still holding him down.  _

_ “Wouldn't it be awful, kitten, if I revealed all your weak spots to the enemy?” The heroine murmured against his burning skin, teeth teasing his collarbone and earning a low sound in response.  _

Marinette groaned in embarrassment and shut the book again right there. Writing the rest of that scene with Alya’s help was an incident she labeled in her head as “The Regrettening”, and she was sure nothing else about this book would make her blush any harder. 

The subject matter of intimacy didn't really bother her  _ that _ much, but it was the daunting process of trying to write a scene when neither of them had any experience or actual knowledge of how all that works. The first book ended up with sparse, quick moments of passion between the heroes, but since they didn't know each others' identities yet it at least made sense that there were some boundaries they won't cross until later on, right? 

With the genre she was picked up to write, it was a thing that had to happen eventually. Unlike The Thousand Year Hunt, the story of these two heroes will span over three short novels, and so there was more than enough time for their relationship to progress. Marinette chewed the inside of her cheek as she cleaned up the tiny living room of her apartment and went back to her room to finish working on her most recent project; an evening dress. 

Having a secret identity as a popular romance novel writer who kept their identity a complete mystery was hard work. Naturally a disguise was needed, and Tikki did warn her that Lady Coccinelle will be needing more formal wear. 

She wondered for a moment if this was what teenage superheroes felt like, having to balance school life and their alternate identities’ lives. The only thing was, she was a university student and instead of saving the world, she wrote harlequin romance novels about heroes saving the world while getting entangled in romantic and sexual tension. 

All this for a sewing machine, and all this for every other expense university and life would throw her way.

That and imagining a universe where she and her friends had magical adventures. Not that Marinette would admit to anyone that her lycée crush was the inspiration behind the newest books. She was sure Alya figured it out along the way, but she hadn’t said anything and so Marinette wasn’t going to bring it up. Details were changed to protect everyone involved anyway, so it was going to  _ stay _ a secret between them.

As for now...

Marinette pulled the dress out of its garment bag and carefully put it on her dress form. She stretched tall, feeling the tension crack in her back before she sat on her stool and got to work at finishing beading detail. Her eyes drifted from the deep red of the material every so often to take a break, glancing around the room from her cluttered walls filled with photos, to the navy blue wig sitting on a styrofoam head on her desk that still needed to be restyled. 

...Now was the time to work on some of her own magic.

 

* * *

 

 

Magie et Chance Romance was a small and new publishing company with only a few writers and just as few staff. Thankfully this and the whole secret identity thing gifted Marinette with a manager and editor all in one, so only one more person knew who Lady Coccinelle was besides Alya. Plus, Tikki loved anything sweet, and it didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary for her to visit her family’s bakery for a meeting.

Tikki was definitely one of if not the most energetic people Marinette had ever met. To say that she was more full of life than her short stature could handle was probably more accurate, and more than once Marinette had to dodge her giant braid of thick hair that whipped about in her excitement. Tikki was a saving grace in the whole ‘getting published’ process like a caring aunt that kept Marinette calm and level-headed about the details.

If said aunt was also an enthusiastic romantic and erotic literature connoisseur, that is. Much more than was normal.

The freckled woman across from her flipped through the notebook in her hands with a stern face, a red pen held between her lips.

Her editor’s face when actually at work was a complete opposite of her cheery demeanor. Marinette fidgeted nervously in her seat, stirring her straw in her cup of water. The plate of pastries in between them had already been long emptied.

Tikki put down the notebook and removed the pen from her lips. She grinned back wide. 

“I am so excited for this! I can’t even begin to describe it!”

Marinette breathed a sigh of relief. 

“...Just a couple comments.”

Tikki seemed unsure how to start from there. That didn't sound good. Nerves started to pool in her stomach again. 

“So, I am loving this love square plot! Having their interactions out of costume start to get closer and personal is great, and I can't wait to see how them getting friendlier makes things tense.” Tikki flipped back to the first page of the outline where the superheroes’ civilian identities were detailed and the plot points that cross their paths come in. “And with things getting racy as they get closer, there's a lot of development you can get into - and the conflict of Felix starting to notice Bridgette more with the introduction of the other love interests is going to  _ murder _ all your readers. And thanks again for leaving space for the fan cameo prize for the Kickstarter, I’ll let you know the details on that in a couple weeks.”

Tikki finally began to scribble notes on her own notepad in a loopy script that was hard to read. The pen paused and tapped a couple times on the paper.

“However...I do have to bring something up with you. Especially since you intend for more action to happen between the protags.” 

Marinette cringed when she saw Tikki turn the page to the section of the outline where things get more intimate between the heroes. Her throat dried up instantly and she tried to clear it and take a sip of her drink.

“I let it slide since you only included a couple  _ minor _ scenes in Lucky Strikes at Midnight, but...how do I put this…” She looked to the side, choosing her words carefully.

“It's… very apparent to a trained eye that you have no experience with that kind of sexual intimacy with the way you're writing them.”

Marinette sputtered on her cup of water. 

“And it would be best for you to do some research on the matter.”

She slammed the cup back onto the table, water sloshing everywhere as she beat her chest to stop choking. Tikki slid down next to her on the couch to pat her back to help. 

Marinette had been expecting some conversation about this to come up, but there wasn’t really much she could do to prepare herself for this while sitting in her childhood living room. Never mind the fact that what she had written before were “minor scenes” to Tikki’s standards. She fought down the blush that had instantly taken over her face. 

“Not that I'm saying that you need real-life experience, and not that you need to get some.” Her mentor was completely calm as if she was talking about the weather, waving loosely with one hand. “But I do have some reading resources for you that I can email you later tonight.”

“Right.”

Okay, this is fine, this is good. Tikki was being completely understanding and this is a learning experience. Maybe she could pass off the past interactions in book one as being early in that level of their relationship, not that there was that solid of a timeline for that in her head. 

The conversation still felt like pulling teeth between them, as much as Tikki reassured her everything was okay and it was fine to be embarrassed and to ask any questions at all.

“You’re doing just fine, don't worry. You’re still learning, but you're doing miraculously well.” Tikki giggled at her own reference to the books, enough to make Marinette crack a smile again. “Romance novels are for making readers believe in your magic, giving them a new fantasy and world to experience. You’ve obviously done that with how diverse our reader demographic has become since we picked you up!”

She reached out a hand to pat Marinette’s in comfort, then flipped through more pages for her own notes. 

“Speaking of which, it looks like I found your number one fan in the model we picked for Chat Noir. Lucky him we’re inviting him to the party and your next public appearance, huh?”

Luck, luck, luck. That was the word of the year for this whole experience. It was bad luck that her car got broken into, good luck that Juleka told her about the writing competition, luck that she even won it, and the greatest luck of all that her story became so popular amidst a sea of imported romance books. 

But “lucky” in the way Tikki was using it was sounding less like actual luck and more like a really, really heavy suggestion. Marinette’s eyes narrowed at the woman smiling innocently before she sighed. 

Not to mention there's a reason why she was using a pen name - she wanted to keep this writing identity and her actual one as separate as possible just in case it would mess with being taken seriously in her future endeavors. Tikki understood this need clearly, so why was she being so persistent today?

“Tikkiiiiiii. Do I have to meet him?” Marinette slumped back on the couch, deflating. 

“Yes, you do, especially since you picked your disguise to match Ladybug’s so insistently.”  


Curse Past Marinette and her attachment to her own characters. 

“Now come on, we’re going to have a party for the release because everyone's been working hard to get this book published, so why not just introduce yourself to him? Whiskers has been telling me that his charge would probably die if he met you. He might be a good influence for his own character, who knows.”

Good influence or not, Tikki knows exactly what the next possible photo shoots would need from the outline. Marinette didn't know if personally knowing the model would make it easier or harder on the both of them when the time came for her to write it or him to pose it. Then again, with how racy things would be getting, she seriously doubted how it would get any easier to write now that the leather-clad hero had a face and an image in her head. 

“Fine. But you better help me with getting ready.”

Tikki gave her a wink before packing away her notes. “Your wish is my command, Lady Coccinelle.” 


	2. Adrien: Be a Weeb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien looked closer at the image on the front and snorted. There he was, in all his leather-clad glory...kind of. The gratuitous amount of photoshop on his entire image was more than enough to throw anyone else off about the identity behind the model’s mask. 
> 
> The contour added to his face was ridiculous and his skin gave off the classic ‘olive tanned Greek tycoon’ look he saw on many other romance novel covers. Plus, with green colored sclera and muscle proportions, it was downright the image of a comic book superhero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo did I mention I'll be switching chapter perspectives? You'll be able to tell from the titles. Just one or two more chapters of set up and we'll get things kicking from there! Not much else to say besides that yet except enjoy!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at CrispyPata!

“Congrats, kid. Here's your advanced copy, as promised.”

The sickly-looking man across from him tossed a book onto the table. He grinned wide with a smirk as Adrien felt his mouth drop a little open.

“If you weren't hurting for the cash, I'd say with that look on your face this would have been payment enough.”

A waitress came up to their table and set down their plates. Plagg instantly began digging into a giant plate of pasta while Adrien picked up the book to see the cover, blindly poking at his salad.

“Lucky Strikes at Midnight.” He read the title out loud. The book itself was a matte black and the green text of the title glittered when tilted in the light. Same as with the previous book, Lady Coccinelle’s name was printed in rose-gold loopy script.

“Yeah, she apparently had a hard time with the title-” Plagg said through a half-filled mouth. He swallowed quickly and cleared his throat. “But she apparently has a theme going with this trilogy. I don't really remember when talking with her people.”

Adrien looked closer at the image on the front and snorted. There he was, in all his leather-clad glory...kind of. The gratuitous amount of photoshop on his entire image was more than enough to throw anyone else off about the identity behind the model’s mask.

The contour added to his face was ridiculous and his skin gave off the classic ‘olive tanned Greek tycoon’ look he saw on many other romance novel covers. Plus, with green colored sclera and muscle proportions, it was downright the image of a comic book superhero.

Sure, Adrien was fit and ate well, but the way that the suit appeared to fit every dip of his suddenly sculpture-chiseled abs and each line of muscle on his limbs was ridiculous. At least they didn’t need to retouch anything from behind, he noted with a small flare of pride. The pose he had been contorted into was difficult to hold for more than a few seconds at a time, twisted in such a way that his chest and butt were visible to the camera, all while holding a mischievous smirk.

“A real piece of work, huh? Dots just really knows the right people to go to for a decent price.” In the few minutes Adrien had looked away, Plagg’s plate was suddenly empty.

This was a normal occurrence, since his manager insisted on holding their meetings at different restaurants each time, but it still was an amazing trick he always pulled the second Adrien looked away.

The man only carried a small pouch attached to his belt. Otherwise, Adrien would be sure Plagg was packing it all away in a container for later.

“A heads up for later though; this was the easier stuff but you might be showing a lot more skin later. The mask stays on whether you’re playing as Chat Noir or Félix, of course. That's just part of the hero aesthetic.”

He mentioned this calmly, watching Adrien carefully through half-lidded eyes.

After a moment, Plagg seemed satisfied enough to tease. “What, you're not going to bribe me to tell you what that scene is going to be about?”

‘The average Frenchman eats 3 wheels of Camembert a day’ stereotype is actually just statistical error. Plagg, his manager, eats over 10,000 a day and is an outlier who should not be counted.

Okay, that may not have been completely true. But, the man was unpredictable to Adrien even after knowing him for a couple months. Even though this was his job, Plagg only let out information when he felt like it. So Adrien started bribing Plagg with a package of Camembert that he could get away with buying on his father’s card because cheese seemed to motivate his manager more than anything else.

At first, it was hints about the novel. Then Adrien tried to get to know Plagg (he always sauntered up to their meet ups on foot and seemed to disappear until the next time, as if he were a summon—but even cheese couldn't unlock any of Plagg’s backstory.) Adrien then progressed to asking about Lady Coccinelle, which was also just as vaguely answered.

Still, he owed so much to Plagg.

That late night he had sleepily driven back to the apartment on his moped and, as bad luck would have it, he snapped awake when, of all things, a black cat ran into the road.

Adrien swerved, crashing into a tree and breaking his nose among other scratches and bruises, and it would have been the complete end of his life if Father ever found out. You might as well would have buried him alive in a coffin and that would have been the same amount of freedom.

Whatever he had said in that moment of panic and shock when Plagg had stumbled upon him still lying there seemed to give Plagg a clue not to call Father. He managed to convince the nurses to not call his father either when Plagg came to the hospital to return Adrien’s bag that had been left behind.

Whatever he had said then also was enough to compel the stranger to stick around to make sure he was okay. By that point, he felt so emotionally drained, but Plagg sat with him until Nino could help him home.

And so began their acquaintance.

Plagg had asked him if he had the means to fix his moped. He quickly backtracked a second later when the same panic ran across Adrien’s face as earlier.

“I don't know what your situation is,” The man looked away for a moment, arms crossed as he tilted his head as if to shake thoughts around his head. “But if the only person you can rely on is yourself right now, I know a gig that will pay you quick once that money maker of yours heals up enough.”

Best craft services he’s ever had too, Plagg had said excitedly then with a grin. Not to mention he could keep it a secret if he wanted.

Of course, this all seemed a bit too vague and shady, but that was when Plagg handed Adrien a dark green paperback novel and his card - and by his card, it was someone else’s card with his name and number written on the back, explaining that he had nothing else on him since he came back to Paris just that day. But if Adrien wanted to really check that the job was real, he could call the actual number on the card first (the real name was crossed out, with “Tikki” written next to it) and tell them Plagg sent him.

At this point, with the potential wrath of Father hanging over his head if he failed, Adrien had nothing else to lose.

Plagg left as soon as Nino arrived, waving over his shoulder instead of saying goodbye. As if he knew he didn't need to.

And he didn't. Adrien sat with Nino on the couch of their apartment on speakerphone with this “Tikki”, who turned out to be looking for a model for a novel cover. The pay was enough that Adrien could get away with small gradual cash withdrawals to pay for his moped and the hospital bill without Father knowing. The excited voice on the other line confirmed everything that Plagg had said, even that Adrien could stay anonymous on the job.

He came into Magie et Chance Romance two weeks later once his broken nose had healed enough, wearing the black mask that Plagg had given him. The interview with Tikki about the details was serious until the moment she walked with him to the door and practically tackled him with a hug.

The whole ordeal had been nerve wracking. But, at the same time, it was exhilarating that he could take the reigns on his life, even if it was in secret.

Adrien put down the book and began eating, looking up at Plagg only when he was sure his manager was looking down at his phone. It was a model about 3 generations behind and covered in scratches, just as worn down as its owner.

He wondered sometimes what exactly his manager had gotten up to in the past to look like a drenched alley cat who lost more than its fair share of fights. The man even got offended at Adrien for asking how old he was and refused to answer.

“Oh, before I forget, I told Dottie about your celeb crush on your little Lady.” He looked bored, reaching over and plucking a big flake of parmesan cheese from Adrien’s salad.

“Plagg!” Adrien’s fork clattered loudly back on the plate and he felt heat crawl up his neck to the tips of his ears.

“Fine, fine, I’ll just un-tell Dottie so she can un-invite you to the company’s release party and you won’t meet Lady Coccinelle.”

Plagg smirked at Adrien, leaning back in his seat and popping the flake of cheese in his mouth.

The worst thing about Plagg, Adrien decided, was that he was always as sleazy as he looked. Tikki mentioned that Plagg was a huge softie when Adrien told her how they met, but now he knew what she meant by “a heart made of Camembert”; just as soft and gooey, but also just as rotten-smelling sometimes.

 

* * *

 

Nino was still out when he got back from lunch, so Adrien decided to take a little time to delve deeper into the character he’s taken on now that he had the canon material in his hands.

How he got into character before that was the harder part to explain. Not because it was different from his normal personality, per se, but rather he put a lot more work into it than anyone would think was necessary.

Not that it was hard to do or anything. He easily was able to piece together ideas from the chart he made.

Yes, he made a chart of traits of every phantom thief and cat burglar he could think of. No, he wasn’t ashamed of his hard work and research.

Adrien was just a little frustrated that Chat Noir wasn't much of a thief character as he hoped after reading Thousand Year Hunt. Diamond Turtle had to be one because of his role and his mission in the novel, plus the novel followed the detective’s point of view since she saw him in that light before she met him. Both he and Ladybug adhered a lot closer to actual superhero tropes in Lucky Strikes at Midnight.

Well, maybe it didn't all go to waste. There were bits and pieces from those characters that he could see in Chat.

Lupin III was sly and smooth with a Cheshire grin, that much was the same, though Ladybug was the half-French one. Dark Mousy was vastly different from his host body, like the difference in Chat and Félix. The hero’s relationship with Ladybug was akin to Catwoman’s with Batman, and Adrien deeply hoped that Ladybug and Chat Noir would have the same happy ending like in most iterations of the couple.

He started crossing names off of the chart that didn't have anything in common. Who knows where Lady Coccinelle got her inspiration from.

...well, actually, he might once he meets her.

Plagg called it a celebrity crush, but Adrien just genuinely wanted to meet her and talk to her about everything. He had so many questions about the series’ universe!

He crossed off Howl from the side of the list. That one for sure he knew was wrong - Plagg had mentioned plot details that were tossed out, including Chat Noir being cursed with his ring. A kiss from Ladybug would free him, and that would have added so much tension if they ever fell in love!

Not that the current plot was bad, it was just different, and that only meant that there was a stronger plot that she wanted to develop.

On the way home on the subway, Adrien had gotten through most of the novel already. His own imagination had some theories proven, like Diamond Turtle and the detective’s plot in Thousand Year Hunt was related to Ladybug and Chat Noir’s. Ladybug mentioned earlier on that the detective was her best friend - her secret practically hidden in plain sight.

For now - Adrien returned to the living room, flopped onto the couch and found the dog-eared page he left off on - he was more concerned about how the hero’s relationship was progressing.

 

_Ladybug’s vision filled with spots when she heard a shout and was thrown against the wall. She blinked back into full consciousness to find herself pinned back with clawed fingers digging into her shoulders._

_“Chat!”_

_She saw the arrow only for the briefest second before it melted into his back. His head was still bowed, body hunched up as big as possible to shield her._

_“Chat, are you okay?”_

_She dived just in time out of the way when his hands let go of her shoulders to try for her neck._

 

Wait, no, he was further than that. As per usual, his timing was always the worst and he got to the good part as soon as his stop came up. He flipped forward a couple pages.

 

_True love’s kiss._

_That's what Tikki had told her._

_Her kwami was being vague about the details. But that's what she called it. The ancient being put it simply - as long as the heart wasn't closed off completely, Ladybug could still reach it, no matter how much Hawk Moth’s magic bound it. As long as Chat Noir felt, as long as he was still some reflection of himself, his heart could be reached. It could be saved._

_They had a bond that was greater than love. It was destined that they became the champions of creation and destruction, of luck and misfortune. One could not survive without the other. Shadows can't exist without light to cast them. Light can only be perceived when darkness is there to contrast, to bring depth and perspective._

_And when his misfortune grants her opportunity, her luck resets the scale._

_When she had found Chat Noir again after she had consulted Tikki, standing atop the roof where they met almost every night, her heart was calm. Ladybug knew what to do._

_She approached him with a smile, with arms out wide to welcome him._

_His eyes lost their malicious focus upon seeing her, now confused and on guard._

_She could almost see the words spew from his lips, the dark magic twisting his breath into hate and staining his lips black. After Chat had been turned, she didn't even notice the change beginning when she fought him off the second time. But now his lips were completely black - he must have been talking with Dark Cupid this whole time._

_Which meant…_

_The whistle of an arrow sliced through the air-_

 

Adrien didn't even notice Nino had come back home until he heard him laugh.

“Wow, that's really something they did to you on that cover.” Nino tossed his keys on the table before flopping into the adjacent chair.

Adrien closed the book and handed it over. “You think that's something? You should see the insert photos.”

Nino slowly flipped through the pages, nodding in approval. “So how was the meeting with Cheese Wiz?”

“I get to meet Lady Coccinelle in a week.”

“The _actual_ Lady?”

Adrien shrugged. “It's for the publisher's party, it's small so I don't see why she wouldn't come. Maybe for a public event she’d use a double though.”

“Alright, that's awesome!” Nino held out his fist with a grin, which Adrien met with his own. “Also, can I say it is really weird to see you pinning yourself down and giving yourself bedroom eyes? Because it is.”

“Giving the ground bedroom eyes was harder.”

Nino handed him back the book. “Feels like everyone’s been reading this lately too, Alya’s been super excited.”

He suddenly grasped at his head with a frustrated groan and slumped back in the chair.

“Alya's coming back in a couple weeks for our anniversary.” It came out more like a fact than anything.

Adrien grinned and clapped softly. “Congrats!”

“I don't know where to take her.”

“The zoo?”

“Very funny. And we did that already for our second anniversary, remember?” Nino kicked up a discarded couch pillow off the floor and covered his face with it.

“I don't think it really matters at this point, you two barely get to see each other, so isn't it nice to just spend that time together?”

Adrien reached over and pulled the pillow off of Nino’s face to stop his best friend from smothering himself.

“Hey, if you really can't think of anything, maybe it can be a group thing. We can go out for drinks or lunch and then you two can go watch a movie or something in the evening.”

Adrien held out his fist first this time, leaning over the couch arm to reach where his friend had almost slipped to the floor. Nino laughed and met him halfway with the fist bump.

“Thanks man, I'm glad I can always count on you.” Their hands grasped together as Adrien helped Nino stand up again. “I'll check with Marinette if she's free so it can be like the old days! She fell off the face of the earth lately for some reason, but I'm sure she'd be happy to catch up.”  


Later that night, Adrien remembered that he never finished that chapter while he was in the middle of a reading assignment.

Leave it to a romance novel of all things to keep him motivated through reading Milton. Once he rushed through his bedtime routine, Adrien practically dove into his bed and opened up the book.

 

_Ladybug had reached out to his heart to bring him back to her._

_She loosened her forceful grip on his hair when he stopped struggling to pull away. Instead, he leaned in closer, wrapping his arms around her waist. Their lips parted for just a breath of a moment as she stole a glance at his face. Every trace of malice was gone from him, skin once again flushed with a lively hue. She barely registered the same color of his lips when they captured hers again._

_But something was wrong._

_He was too gentle, too soft compared to their usual passionate kisses. It was a gentleness that struck her heart with a sudden fire that it felt as if it would turn to ashes. It was too different from the feel of his skin against hers in their stolen moments together. Too foreign to that hunger that they satiated in each other._

_In that moment, as he slipped between being controlled and controlling himself, this kiss was his heart's honesty._

_It was always a game between the two of them, their physical intimacy. In a life where they couldn't afford to love, to have that someone they feared for over everyone’s safety. They had a bond stronger than love, stronger than coincidence. But that did not mean that love could not also exist within it. They promised that they would not, they could not -_

_Ladybug knew in that moment, with that one kiss, that Chat Noir had truly and completely fallen in love with her._

_And in that moment, she now knew he had lost their game._

 

Adrien hummed and rolled around, twisting his sheets around him as he tried to fidget off the excitement without being noisy.

But come on, how can he sleep after reading that?

The best thing about Lady Coccinelle, Adrien decided, was how she described intense emotions. Every rise and fall of the two books he’d read so far pulled at him and made him believe every word. He felt emotions that he hadn’t had the chance to feel yet in his own life - he still understood them through her words and right now he just felt so much, he could hardly contain it. 

“You’ve had enough emotions for today.” Father would often say.

Adrien sighed as he picked his blanket up from the floor and buried himself in it.

He didn’t want to think about what else Father would say about him right now. It was miraculous in itself that he was even allowed to go to school back in lycée, allowed to do all these small things and eventually convince his father to let him to go university and live with Nino in an apartment.

Father worried so much about Adrien’s health and safety. A few secrets probably wouldn’t kill him - it would save him the stress.

Adrien closed his eyes and nuzzled against his pillow, taking slow, deep breaths. The novel still laid right next to it, face down and open to the second-to-last chapter.


	3. Marinette and Alya: Start Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, at least your writing and efficiency is way better now than it was back when you used to write Quantic Kid fanfic-”
> 
> “We do not talk about my Quantic Kid fanfiction.” Marinette cut in sharply.
> 
> Never again. Let her past writing follies stay buried and gone in the past, please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still not much to say except I'm very excited to start the next chapter. eue their alter egoes will be meeting soon enough.
> 
> Follow me at crispypata on tumblr, like always!

“...okay, so Chat Noir confronts Ladybug about their possible romantic relationship  _ before _ or  _ after _ Félix hires Bridgette to take his boudoir photos for Ladybug?”

Marinette peeked into the pot boiling on the stove, slowly adding in carrots from the cutting board. Her brows furrowed as she glanced over the counter where her phone was propped up with Alya on video call.

“Um...let’s see...he confronts her after they sleep together after...Animan? The Kickstarter character will be an akuma right before that I think, so yeah, after that close call- ow!” Hot water splashed up from the pot and scalded Marinette’s hand. She stuck her wrist under the faucet and ran cold water over it. “After that close call, when they rendezvous later at their hideout, both of them can tell during the whole thing that something is different between them.”

“I can’t hear you, what was that?” Alya’s voice was barely heard over the running water.

Marinette swore as she accidentally knocked over the dish soap bottle into the sink when she reached for the faucet knob. 

“I SAID, AFTER THEY BANG AFTER THE ZOO-” she called over the loud noises, finally shutting off the water and turning back to Alya on her phone screen. 

…and the window she left open right next to it because her stove fan was broken. 

Alya seemed to put together what happened from Marinette’s glance away and started laughing. Marinette just shut the window and sighed, leaning on the counter next to her phone. 

“You gotta stop leaving your windows open.”

“Is it bad that I think my neighbors are used to it by now so it doesn't matter?” Marinette picked up her phone and moved it closer to the stove, propping it up on a shelf so that it was eye level. 

Alya shrugged back at her. “If they are, I don't know what they think you do.”

As per their usual midnight planning calls. Chaos and yelling was how the Miraculous series was written, sometimes with wine included.

“Hey, at least your writing and efficiency is way better now than it was back when you used to write Quantic Kid fanfic-”

“We do not talk about my Quantic Kid fanfiction.” Marinette cut in sharply. 

Never again. Let her past writing follies stay buried and gone in the past, please. 

“So, when is Miss Madeleine coming over to transform you into Cinderella? Ready to meet your Prince Charming in leather?” The faint sound of a text tone rang from Alya’s end.

“Alya, if I have the window closed, you can just call her Tikki, and she'll be here in maybe an hour to try things on.”

Marinette glanced at her phone screen where Alya was still waiting on the answer for the second question. Her best friend tilted her head to the side as if to silently ask again. Why did she have to notice everything she avoided?

Then again, this is the girl working on a journalism major. Alya was just too perceptive sometimes. 

“Okay, but just hear me out on this. Maybe the model will turn out to be a cool guy at least.”

Marinette couldn't help how her face scrunched up at that. “But...what if he isn't?”

“Okay I'm listening, what do you mean by that?” Alya leaned in closer to her webcam, propping her head up on a hand. 

“Well, what if he’s not a cool guy? What if he's a creep or he has horrible manners? What if he's a gross flirt that won't leave me alone?”

“Then you don't have to interact with him anymore after that, just tell Tikki and she'll make sure you don't ever have to. I don't think she’d hire a terrible person after meeting them in person though.”

A hand scrambled around the counter for the box of macaroni noodles, dumping in more than what seemed needed from the box. “Okay, but what if he's only doing this for the job and doesn't actually want to be there? Like he's there only because he's obliged to?”

“Again, then you don't have to do anything. If he doesn't, then he doesn't. It doesn't hurt to try.”

“And if we do become friends, what if his personality is so different from Chat Noir’s that it messes up how I write? That I keep imagining him instead and it ruins the process and I lose my popularity and become a has-been before I even finish the trilogy? Or what if he's allergic to something in the bakery like almonds and I can't even get near him without almost killing him? I can't be allergen-free when everything I own has been covered in flour or gotten dough on it at some point in my life, even after I moved out!”

Marinette loosened her grip on her hair when she saw she testing the limits of Alya’s patience in the way the girl’s mouth had dropped to a thin straight line. Alya’s brows were raised up high over her now very amused eyes. 

“I'm starting to get the feeling that this isn't completely about model boy.”

“But-” Marinette gestured helplessly with her arms, unable to find further words to defend herself with. “...What about stranger danger?”

“Girl-” Alya snorted and began cracking up. “Ah, shoot, I can’t be laughing this loud at midnight. I got a noise violation the last time you had that kind of mental meltdown.”

Marinette couldn’t help but start laughing a little with her. Okay, fine, she'll admit that she was sounding a little ridiculous. 

“Sorry. I just… this is all weird.” She turned back to the counter to pick up the other chopped vegetables and add them to the soup. 

“What are you expecting him to be like?”

“Huh?” This time Marinette managed to dodge the splash of water from the pot, roughly dropping in the potatoes.

Alya leaned back in her desk chair and crossed her arms. “You're so focused on him rather than meeting anyone else in the company. That means something. So what is going on in your head right now that has you so worried?”

Marinette opened her mouth, voice stuttering for a second before she closed it and busied herself instead with checking on how cooked the chicken was in her soup. Alya hummed in warning not unlike her mother. She laid the ladle across the pot, still not facing her best friend on the screen. 

“Mari.”

A whine came from her throat in reluctant acknowledgement. 

“ _ Marinette _ .” There was the mom tone in full effect. 

“Whaaaat.” The writer responded weakly. 

It's not like she was really avoiding that thought, but it was just...just…

Frustrating. 

It was so frustrating that she didn't know what she was feeling, that she didn't have a name to it to pin the blame. 

Alya seemed to sense that she wasn't going to get an answer out of Marinette and tried to change tactics.

“You know where you stand on ‘that’ subject yet?”

Alya never named it whenever she mentioned it, but Marinette deflated anyway. She turned her back to lean against the counter and stared up at the ceiling light.

‘That’ subject.

Or rather, her old crush on Adrien Agreste.

Marinette sighed and glanced over to the simmering pot. Becoming an author still didn’t really give her the right words to describe any of that. Mostly because ‘old’ would imply something in the past and, despite not seeing the teen model since before moving to university, her stomach still did funny little flips on just hearing his name. 

Like a curse, maybe. A haunting. But he didn’t deserve to be compared with such negative words even if she couldn’t come up with anything better.

For writing so much in the last two years, there weren't many words she could use to describe those feelings about Adrien Agreste. It was mostly garble, just like when he first handed her his umbrella that one day. 

Feelings: 2, Marinette: 0.

“You’re going to have to see him again sooner or later.” Alya’s voice sounded distant over the phone speaker, the faint jingle of her phone in the background.

Marinette ran her hands through her hair, combing it back with her fingers and tugging at the ends. “I know, I know.”

Her crush never went away completely even if it did die down enough to become close friends with him throughout school. Then she had to write these books, which ate up all her free time outside of school, and somewhere along the way Adrien got busier too and Alya moved for her university and internship... So there was a point that they just fell out of contact. It wouldn't have been so hard to bring herself to initiate conversation again if Marinette didn't spend that time apart essentially writing a fictional tale about their relationship as superheroes. 

Somehow she created a stable shame loop. Because she created Chat Noir, she was too embarrassed to talk to Adrien again. Because she based the hero off of Adrien, she was too afraid of meeting the model who can only take on Chat’s identity in public, in case he was nothing like either of them. 

There was a ridiculous amount of layers to this problem. 

“And apparently, it really is sooner than later.”

She craned her head to look at the screen, where Alya was looking down from her webcam to her cell phone. The redhead was scrolling through something before shrugging and looking up again. 

“Apparently we’re all getting together on next Saturday when I’m back in town again; you, me, Nino, and Adrien.”

“What?!”

Marinette lost her grip on the counter and tried to reach back and catch herself before she fell. 

She saw Alya reach out in alarm from the screen a little too late as she stuck a hand on the stove and yelled in pain. 

  
  


One finished soup, an abruptly ended video call, and a burnt left palm later, Marinette was curled up on her bean bag chair with a spoon sticking out of her mouth, staring at the word processor on the screen. 

_ The gallery was empty - closed for the night but she had a keycard to get in as one of the staff. The security always looked the other way when she brought them treats to get them through the night shift. And so she would come in during the late hours of the night when her heroic duty didn't call for her.  _

_ Bridgette was an artist. She could work with any medium put in her hands and could make any photo angle possible with a camera.  _

_ She was an artist teaching classes to kids and adults in her spare time here at the Gallery Chateau Noir (named for the estate, not the hero, she learned early on) but one of the real joys was the exhibits.  _

_ In the middle of the night, with the dim lights and the silence, surrounded by beautiful works new and old, Bridgette felt at peace. She could wander for hours when she couldn't sleep, stopping to sketch often.  _

_ There was one piece that never was switched out, she noticed. A painting that was always lit brighter than the others, near the back of the gallery, protected by reinforced glass. A painting with gold flakes mixed in, making the blue-clothed subject shine ethereal like a goddess.  _

_ That was the piece she found herself resting in front of as she painted in her tablet. The heroine didn’t know exactly what about the painting called her toward it every time, but she came up with breathtaking, vast landscapes and glimpses of faces of all places in the world.  _

_ It was as if the painting spoke to her. Told its stories of collectors past, what walls it could have hung upon and what history it had witnessed. _

_ Or so she imagined. It was the only painting without a placard, so everything about it was a mystery to her. The aging of the paint was uneven all over, making it hard to tell how old it was.  _

_ “The gallery is closed. Who let you in here?” _

_ Bridgette’s hair flew into her face for the briefest moment as her head snapped up at the voice behind her. She combed one hand backwards to pull her dark locks out of her eyes to see a man standing in the dim lighting - _

 

Marinette’s fingers paused, hovering over the keyboard. 

She just needed to describe Félix. She had her notes right on the table, it's all right there!

Her fingers stayed frozen in the air, curling inwards and stretching out straight. 

What did she describe Félix like? Was it a person that she expected to meet, or someone she never wanted to meet?

Marinette sighed, resting her knuckles against the keyboard, careful of her palms. Her fingernails tapped the keys rhythmically but did not press down. She smacked her uninjured palm to her forehead, rubbing her temple. 

...Damn it, Alya. Why did she have to probe into her worries like that?

It wasn't like that anyway! Félix wasn't a good person outside of the suit, he's the opposite of Adrien, even! He's a jerk, he's cold, he's petty - he's completely different from how Adrien actually was! 

Marinette covered her eyes and groaned in frustration. 

But did that mean that Félix is the person she didn't want to meet? 

Or was this how she saw Adrien before he apologized to her about the gum incident? 

Come on Marinette, you gotta think with your head right now! Think with your head, not your heart!

Faintly, she felt the pain in her jaw as she breathed out and unclenched it. She shut her laptop and laid it on the floor so she could finish her half-cooled bowl of soup. 

There wasn't any point in writing right now, not when she couldn't think straight. The story may have begun based on real life, but there had to be differences. Félix was one of them. Bridgette was one of them. They’re different from their real-life counterparts. 

So was the model she was going to meet that weekend at the party. Even if they had to take the names and looks of their characters, they still were different people.

Chat Noir will probably not be like Félix. Chat Noir will probably not be like Adrien. He will be a separate person than both of them. Try to be friends with him at the very least. 

Marinette heard a knock and Tikki’s voice from the front door. She kept repeating this mantra in her head as she got up and walked to the door. 

Chat Noir will not be Félix. Chat Noir will not be Adrien. You will not _fall_ -

Fingers paused on the door handle as her whole body jerked back in surprise. 

Where was that thought going to go?

Marinette shook her head furiously to toss out that line of thinking and opened the door, revealing her manager with arms full of bags and an excited grin. 

 

* * *

“Okay…that looks just about right! Next time, I won't make such a mess with the wig glue.”

Tikki leaned back to admire her work, blindly reaching beside her for a hand mirror that she put in Marinette’s hands. 

“Tikki…” Marinette only whispered this before gaping at her reflection. Ladybug stared back at her.

There wasn’t too much of a difference between how she described the heroine and her own appearance when it came down to the basics, but she truly saw Ladybug there in the mirror.

Tikki’s eyes popped up over her shoulder in the reflection. “Nice to meet you, Lady Coccinelle.”

Marinette stood up and moved to the bathroom to get a better look. She leaned over the sink, tilting her head in every direction to look at the face staring back at her.

Midnight blue hair shined with a highlight as light as her own natural eyes in the mirror, pinned up halfway into a bun with pins of small pink and white roses and buds draping from a small chain from each side of her head and the bun itself. The bottom layer of her hair was left loose, sitting in soft waves that fell to the middle of her back, complete opposite of the short cut Marinette had. Deep blue eyes - just the shade she described them in the book, like sapphires - blinked back in wonder.

The mask was what really made the magic come together.

It felt sturdy, holding its own shape to change the silhouette of her eyes, nose, and cheekbones hidden underneath. With the spirit gum now set, it still followed the way her muscles moved underneath as she made all sorts of faces to try it out. 

It moved as if it was a part of her own face, a perfect disguise. Not as natural as her own skin, of course. She could still feel the glue binding the mask and wig to her head with a weight and pull, and the colored contacts will take some getting used to. 

Yet, this brought up more feelings that she couldn't quite name, welling up inside her with a restless giddiness and making it impossible to tear her eyes away from the reflection in the mirror. 

“Hi.” She couldn't help but whisper to the mystery girl looking back at her with a small grin. 

Hi, the reflection said back to her. I’m Ladybug. 

All this time, she thought that she would be nervous making more public appearances. The first time, hiding behind a black wig, sunglasses, and a face mask was completely nerve wracking.  That fear was gone now, not even an echo as she looked herself in the eye. 

This was a real secret identity. Her secret identity.

The words were coming to her now. She felt brand new, confident, and powerful. Actually… she felt like Ladybug.

Finally, one simple answer came to her tonight. 

Feelings: 2, Marinette: 1.

Marinette snapped out of the spell when she heard Tikki’s voice dangerously raising in the other room and headed back.

Tikki’s face was contorted, now sternly talking into the phone cradled with her shoulder as she started packing all the extra products back into their bags.

“You can’t just show up unannounced anymore! Look, just- did you eat- I SAID DID YOU EAT YOU FURBALL-” Tikki looked at Marinette who awkwardly stood in the doorway, now giving her a cheery grin. “Sorry, Lady Coccinelle, I gotta head out now. I have just enough time to help take off all that, just give me a sec. Sit right down.”

Marinette nodded and obeyed, strength suddenly gone as Tikki’s face flipped back to something scarier now that she was talking to the phone again. “I’ll be there in 30 minutes. Don’t bother looking for the key, it isn’t there anymore. Buy a coffee or something next door and wait for me, okay?”

It amazed Marinette how Tikki could turn moods on a dime with an astounding amount of control. Naming the ancient god of luck in the series after her manager’s nickname was an accurate decision. 

Her wrath now cooled, Tikki began soaking cotton balls in a solution and pressing it on the edges of the wig, working it into the lace before picking up the edge near her ear and rubbing it in to slowly lift it. It didn’t take long - in an instant the wig was laid in Marinette’s lap and Tikki began working at the hair cap.

“Hey, Tikki. Mind if I ask you something a little personal?”

“Hm?” Her editor paused in removing the glue from Marinette’s hairline. Tikki pulled slightly away, still holding up the handful of cotton balls.

Marinette broke their gaze, suddenly feeling awkward. She smoothed over the wig in her lap. “Why do you write?”

Looking up again, she could almost see the question mark pop up over Tikki’s head as her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open with a small sound of surprise.

“Well, that’s a big question, isn’t it?” Tikki’s eyebrows knitted together. Her smile was soft, face a little confused, more amused than anything.

Marinette twiddled strands in her hands, realizing how vague the question was. “Er, sorry. It’s just something I’ve been wondering. You don’t have to answer it if you have to go now.”

Tikki stretched her arms tall above her and took a deep breath. She threaded her hands together behind her neck in a way that squished her face between her elbows.

“Well, there’s not really a quick answer to it, that’s all.” She hummed to herself with her eyes looking up, trying to pull the answer down from the air above her. “I guess...when you grow up with something, you know for sure how you feel about it. You know where you stand with baking after growing up in the bakery, right?”

Marinette nodded, unsure whether she should interject. 

Baking came easy by now to her. She could work from a recipe or just from the heart because she knew the ingredients well enough. She could diagnose what went wrong in the process if something didn’t turn out right and she had the delicacy and patience to handle the most painstaking of treats even with her clumsy streak.

It was something she knew so well. But it wasn’t her passion like designing and fashion was.

“Yeah, that’s how I got involved with romance. Mama would watch every kind of telenovela, drama, soap opera, teleserye, from any country - you name it, as long as it had translated subtitles and sometimes even not. I didn’t get as a kid why she loved them so much. But after a while, I understood.”

Tikki reached out to unclip the flower pins from the wig, watching the chain coil in one palm before closing her fingers over it.

“Everyone needs a little magic in their lives. Sometimes it’s a certain song or smell that brings up a feeling. Maybe it’s a phrase, maybe it’s a color. It’s funny how things make you feel things...well, maybe that’s a strange way to put it.” She giggled at this in a short breath. “I think romance is magic.”

Marinette smiled at this. “Hence the name?”

“Hence the name! Now you know the secret!” Tikki thrusted her arms up in exclamation and they both started laughing.

She lowered her arms again slowly, playing with the hem of her skirt. 

“Life isn’t always like those stories. You get bits and pieces, but life’s not always as neatly resolved. But even in another language, my Mama still understood what was going on in those shows. You don’t know everything that’s going to happen, but you have an idea, and you have hope that the ending you want will be there at the end. As the writer, you cast a spell on your audience. Make them feel things, make them believe in your words that they have to express it. Make them cry, make them laugh, make them shout in joy or throw the book across the room.”

The atmosphere of the room shifted with her words. Something somber flickered in Tikki’s eyes before she reinforced her smile.

“Not everyone gets the adventure of romance in their lives. So it’s nice to be enchanted by these stories sometimes to imagine how things could be, even if for a little while. And so you create. You bring hope, possibility, and magic all together so that every time they see or hear a certain something, that experience you describe becomes a feeling just as real as any other they will feel.”

Marinette suddenly felt extremely humbled. Her head bowed and her eyes lowered to her lap, almost ashamed. 

This was passion. This was love and living for your work. This was something she strived to have in her life someday. 

But she was here, writing and making money because she had the chance to. Writing was as much fun as baking and it was more challenging and difficult, but it wasn't her utmost passion. Once this series was completed, Marinette knew she would hang up her pen name and continue to focus on her fashion career. 

“Up-up-up-up! Don’t give me that look.” Tikki used a finger to tip Marinette’s head back up again to look her in the eye.  “That’s my reason to write. It’s my fire. You don’t have to write for some great noble cause. You have your own that is just as good. You have stories to tell like that too. You have your own magic that only you know. That feeling that you have to share.”

“That kind of feeling…”

Marinette nodded slowly and thought back.

That kind of feeling that felt like magic. That couldn’t be described by anything else but magic.

She thought back, feeling her heart pick up and skip a beat.

Blue-gray skies. Black fabric.

Green, earnest eyes.

She felt her face begin to heat up.

The chilly, moist air thick with rain. Warmth of the slightest touch. A different warmth that had spread through her entire being.

That kind of magic…

The sound of falling rain. Laughter as clear and bright as bells. The snap of an umbrella closing. 

The crack of thunder as lightning struck.

Marinette didn’t even notice her eyes had closed until she opened them again slowly. Tikki was now looking at her with a wide, warm smile of understanding.

Her voice was soft. “Yeah, we write to make magic just like that.”


	4. Adrien: Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plagg finally came out of his room, carrying clothes in his arms almost bridal style, as if he were presenting an offering. The older man’s face was unreadable as he looked at the clothes, before meeting Adrien’s gaze with a sly grin.
> 
> ...Scratch that description. With an empty plate before him, it made more sense with it that Adrien was being prepped as a sacrificial offering, rather than the offering being made to him, and it made him really uneasy. Paired with the audible wrath of Tikki he once heard over Plagg’s phone, the thought only solidified.
> 
> Chat Noir was an offering to appease the ancient deity of luck, both in the book with his bad luck abilities and apparently in real life with hiring him.
> 
> Adrien’s concerns only grew. Not that Plagg would even breathe a hint as to why he was the only one that had to endure the scary side of Tikki, but evidently something was up between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is long overdue; I try to post every other week, but I really fought with this. At 7700 words, this is the longest chapter I've written to date. THANK YOU DORA YOU ARE THE BEST BETA IN THE WORLD <3
> 
> Find me at CrispyPata on tumblr. I'm completely exhausted, it's done, now enjoy your ladynoir fluff >:3c

The Jade Dragon was a relatively new bar in the heart of the city. It was a small nook in the basement of a shop complex that was easy to miss during the day. The bar’s name was easily overlooked compared to the other offices and stores that shared the same sign out front, but it was during the night when The Jade Dragon came alive.

As for tonight, it was the bar rented for the publishing party, and the stage for Chat Noir’s opening scene.

Adrien met at Plagg’s apartment that afternoon to get ready and more or less prepare himself mentally. He was hardly able to stay still all week, fidgeting in his seat so much in class that someone snapped at him to stop making his chair squeak and practically wearing down tracks in the carpet at home. It was bad enough that Nino went with him for a run to tire it all out.

Even when they were completely worn out and laid on their backs in the grass in the park, the anxiety flip-flopping in his stomach bubbled up into giggles that slipped through his grin.

He knew this feeling. It was so familiar, like the fear and hope that clashed inside him looking out of his window, making plans for his escape attempts to meet with Chloé at school. Every curtain was drawn closed in the quiet mansion he called home. All, except for the glass window that cast the sun's glow and warmth over him as he contemplated the security system weaknesses.  
  
It was a warmth he knew and held onto so well.

A new adventure to go on. A new face, a new name, and a whole new character to take on. So many new people to meet.

One certain person he couldn't wait to meet.

In Plagg’s cramped, tiny apartment, there weren't many places the manager could hide to get away from Adrien’s excited chatter besides the bathroom and his bedroom. The latter was where the older man snuck away to while Adrien sat at the table and ate on his own.

Plagg finally came out of his room, carrying clothes in his arms almost bridal style, as if he were presenting an offering. The older man’s face was unreadable as he looked at the clothes, before meeting Adrien’s gaze with a sly grin.

...Scratch that description. With an empty plate before him, it made more sense with it that _Adrien_ was being prepped as a sacrificial offering, rather than the offering being made to him, and it made him really uneasy. Paired with the audible wrath of Tikki he once heard over Plagg’s phone, the thought only solidified.

Chat Noir was an offering to appease the ancient deity of luck, both in the book with his bad luck abilities and apparently in real life with hiring him.

Adrien’s concerns only grew. Not that Plagg would even breathe a hint as to why he was the only one that had to endure the scary side of Tikki, but evidently something was up between them.

It was a boundary his manager made clear that would not be crossed, so Adrien resolved to respect that and not try to deduce anything.

Even so, the man’s excitement was infectious. All previous thoughts of sacrificial offerings went out the window as Adrien got a good look at the details of the outfit. He was an Agreste after all - his closet was made up of easily recognizable styles and logos, so Plagg had something of his modified for the night.

There wasn’t much he could check in the tiny mirror in Plagg’s bathroom besides that his wig in place, his makeup and mask sealed, and his sclera lenses stayed in place. Adrien had Plagg take one photo of him to make sure his outfit was fitted okay - a dark green button-up with a vest on top and fitted slacks, with small details added in like gold metal paw pins in the tips of his vest lapels.

It was all so different from getting ready for shoots in some way. Adrien wasn’t exactly sure how yet.

 

Now here they both were, with Adrien sitting in the back of a subway car, his hood pulled as far over his face as possible. Plagg was opposite him, laid across both seats with his arms behind his head like a pillow. The lights from outside the window flickered across the man’s face with the train’s movement - he looked unusually healthy with concealer and foundation on, or at least a good deal younger.

Each stop called over the intercom only made Adrien more anxious. Instead of peeking out from behind a runway curtain in line, he was frozen, being delivered towards the stage.

Plagg seemed to read Adrien’s mind even with his eyes closed. “So ‘Phones already has your phone covered back at your apartment in case anyone calls or Papa Dearest tries to check where you are, that’s all covered. I talked to a friend, Wayzz, who helps run the place; he’ll be bartending. If you need to step out, just let him know if I'm not there to take you. There's a stairwell that leads to the roof where you can get some quiet to calm things.”

The subway reached the stop right before theirs. Adrien nodded as best he could without moving his hood.

Right. Plagg knew what to do if his anxiety spiked. Adrien could count on Plagg to take care of him if things got bad. They had that much trust built between each other and-

As the automated voice over the speaker called their stop next, Plagg sat up, facing the window. His eyes widened at the darkness of the tunnel outside.

He brought his sleeves up and began to wipe furiously at his face with his fists covered. Adrien jumped and instinctively grabbed both of Plagg’s wrists.

“What are you doing?”

Plagg blinked at him, makeup smeared all over so that the purple under his eyes showed through. “I don't like how I look, I'm going to take the makeup off.”

“With your _sleeve_? Just because it's black doesn't mean the makeup won't show.”

“So? I'll just roll up my sleeves then. It's gunna be hot anyway.” Plagg shrugged, not bothering to pull back his hands from Adrien’s grasp.

Adrien pulled out a small pack of makeup wipes from his back pocket and shoved it into Plagg’s hands. “Then why don't you just buy a new shirt nearby or use my hoodie?”

“I spent too long sticking myself with safety pins.”

Adrien glanced down and saw the metal pins barely peeking out from the side seams of the black dress shirt.

Instead of buying new clothes that actually fit, his manager pinned himself into his clothes. The lengths that Plagg went in his frugality and laziness still caught Adrien off guard every time.

Plagg’s face was as resolute as his words. That's the one thing the model was sure of out of anything else: Plagg didn't say much that made sense, but he stood behind everything he _did_ say.

The doors of their train car opened. Plagg was still roughly rubbing at his face with a wipe as he stood up, beckoning Adrien to follow with his free hand.

“Come on, kid. Show time.”

 

Each step up the stairs to the street exit echoed out in the subway station along with his heart, which now felt like it crawled up his throat, every beat almost painful under his skin.

Adrien blindly followed Plagg on the sidewalk, eyes unfocused on the black blob in front of him as he felt his fingers fidgeting on their own.

Focus on something, Adrien; identify it. What was he even feeling right now?

Hands shaking and palms sweating, knees weak, almost ready to give out from his legs suddenly feeling heavy.

Mom’s spaghetti-

Adrien barked out a laugh that made Plagg turn his head to look behind him for a moment. They continued on as Adrien mentally smacked his own head. This wasn’t the time for old meme references.

No, wait, that was actually on track.

He was nervous. He hoped at least on the surface he looked calm and ready, as the song went.

Something bumped into him - or rather, Adrien bumped into Plagg, who stopped ahead of him, and shook him out of his rambling thoughts.

They were on the right street. A few feet ahead of them stood a short woman with thick hair in a long braid and a taller person in front of her with a large coat and hood covering their figure. They held hands while facing each other, raising them slowly between them before letting them fall at the same rate. Again and again.

Adrien recognized this breathing exercise. He looked at Plagg, who was gazing down at his phone, evidently unwilling to interrupt them.

The hooded figure noticed Adrien and Plagg’s presence after a while; they snapped their hands back against their sides and almost hid behind Tikki, who was a full head shorter.

Adrien himself didn’t notice he had taken a step back towards Plagg until the taller man pushed him forward. Tikki now had her arm around the stranger’s waist, guiding them closer to him.

There was an awkward pause before Adrien realized they both still had their hoods up.

“Come on already, on three.” Tikki laughed, crossing her arms.

“Three!” Plagg called, yanking down Adrien’s hood.

Adrien tried to grab for it, but it was already too late. “Plagg!” He turned to his manager, who slyly smiled back. The man said nothing, instead raising a finger to point back the other way.

He turned and saw the actual image of Ladybug before him, still clutching her lowered hood to hide her mouth.

She took a deep breath, uncovered her face, and stuck out her hand.

“Lady Coccinelle.” Her voice was as stiff as her posture.

He stared blankly for a moment before realizing it was a hand extended in greeting and snapped out of his daze.

“...Chat Noir.” His hand shook hers just as stiffly. Not the best first impression so far, he chided himself internally.

They were ushered inside so soon after introductions that Adrien didn't know how to get another word in to break the ice. People started coming up to all four of them, pushing drinks into their hands, and there was so many voices crowding them, clamoring for attention or photos.

Plagg managed to shoo people away after enduring a good minute of it. Adrien blinked at Lady Coccinelle beside him as she peered into the wine glass someone handed to her at some point. She looked up to catch him staring, giving him a small laugh and a shrug.

She was just about as comfortable as he was right now. He didn't stop to think before that maybe she was as new to all this as he was.

“Hey, is-” Lady Coccinelle nearly jumped at the sound of his voice, eyes wide at him. He tried again. “Is it alright that I go by Chat Noir, or would you rather that I go by a different name since you're not going as Ladybug?”

Plagg snorted and rolled his eyes. “Please, as if a good chunk of the people in this room are using their real names. Your alter egos should be just fine. Hell, I use my nickname way more than my real name and Tikki’s real name is-”

With a loud pop from across the room, something flew out and nailed Plagg in the forehead, making everyone else in the group jump and turn towards the source.

The bartender just stuck his thumb out at the small man across the counter from him, whose glasses were jostled out of place and was growing more anxious by the second. The champagne from the bottle in his hands was still spilling onto the floor.

“Sorry! So- oh jeez.” The man flinched back in his seat. “What happened to you, Plagg? You look awful!”

That comment seemed to have slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it, because now he clapped a hand over his mouth. The bartender quietly took the bottle from the man, having already read the situation.

Plagg glowered, feet heavy with each step as he approached the cowering man. His mouth was smiling, but it only made him look more menacing. “You wanna say that again to my face, bug-eyes?”

Tikki glanced at the two with an apologetic smile. “I'll just let you two get to know each other, I don't think you need a chaperone the whole time.” She followed the pair quickly deeper inside the building, her voice faint as she called out, “Don't hurt Nooroo, I don't want to run the company by myself!”

And then there were two.

“So...do you know what that was all about?” Adrien asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“That’s Nooroo, he runs the business side of Magie et Chance. Not sure what your manager has against him though.” Lady Coccinelle put down her glass on a nearby table and shrugged off her large coat. She hugged it close to her body.

Adrien unzipped his own jacket and took it off. He took a deep breath and stuck his hand out at her again with a smile.

“Chat Noir, at your service, my Lady.”

She looked confused but he didn't falter this time. “We already introduced ourselves to each other.”

“I wanted to try again. All of this is… kind of new to me. I want to make sure I do it right.”

He gave her the most honest smile he could as he tried to swallow his heart back down his throat.

“Isn't that the understatement of the night.” She sighed before perking up again. “I mean, not you getting it right, you're fine. I just mean this is my first time meeting a lot of these people. Anonymous author and all that.”

Lady Coccinelle peeked at her phone and grimaced before stowing it back in a pocket in her dress. She waved for him to follow her back to the lobby.

They hung their coats on the rack near the door. With their hands freed, she stuck one out to him.

“Alright, let’s do this right. I'm Lady Coccinelle, as you know. And since you'll be playing the role of Chat Noir, I'll be playing the role of Ladybug. Mask and all that, you know?”

She wanted to play along with the disguise as much as he did, her shy laugh told him.

He took her hand, letting Chat Noir’s iconic grin spread across his face.

“It feels like we’ve already met, My Lady.”

Lady Coccinelle froze mid-handshake, tilting her head up at him with a confused and scrutinizing stare. “...We have?”

Oh. Right. She was guarding her identity too. Gotta rephrase that.

Adrien held her hand in both of his now, initiating the handshake again. He smiled softly to ease her suspicions.

“My Lady, don’t you remember? We’ve met before, once upon a scene.”

He couldn’t help the way his grin widened when the line hit and she covered her mouth with her other hand. He heard the muffled giggles that slipped between her fingertips, lighting up her eyes - sapphire-bright, just like the book described.

But her _laugh_ , now that was something even _he_ couldn't find words to compare.

And as she laughed, he laughed too.

“I didn't expect you to be such a dork of all things.”

Adrien cocked his head to the side, keeping his jumping nerves cool in his voice. “Is something wrong with that, my Lady?”

She pretended to think about it, pressing a black gloved finger to her red lips.

“Not at all, Chaton. I think I like that even better. Now, I do believe we have fans to entertain?”

Adrien led the way back inside, weaving around the crowd to a pair that couldn't have been more mismatched - the shorter woman with short, orange-dyed hair was dressed casually with worn out jeans and a cut top that revealed hard muscle under her exposed skin. Beside her, leaning over the bar and talking to the bartender, was a lithe, tall woman with sharp features. Her bright blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail that reached the base of her back and she wore a slim-fitted cocktail dress.

Anyone else wouldn't have expected them to be acquainted until the shorter woman began to roughly elbow the taller one’s side.

“Queenie! Our surrogate son is here! Our son is here and he's brought his prom date!”

The taller woman, Queenie, stood upright, nearly towering over everyone around her. Slowly, with narrowed eyes, she looked Lady Coccinelle up and down as she stood next to him.

“Turn around for me, please?”

Lady Coccinelle obeyed, spinning so the train of her dress fanned out. Adrien knew what Queenie was looking for - she was a costumer and, evidently, she didn’t make that dress, not with how carefully she was touching each seam and fold. The base of the bodice was black and sleeveless, with a corset-like piece on top that opened at the breastbone like a parted ladybug’s shell. The fitted skirt underneath was red and had a sheer black trumpet-cut train hemmed to the back.

“I don’t know who you had make this, but I see why Tikki told me I didn’t have to worry about you.” Queenie straightened up, hands on her hips. “Okay, son. We give her our blessing.”

The writer snorted, starting her giggles again while looking to Adrien for an explanation.

He gestured politely with an open hand. “This is Queenie, she makes the costume and masks and puts me in leather. This is Zorro, she's the one that makes me look good in leather and gives me abs. They're my self-proclaimed surrogate aunts.”

Lady Coccinelle laughed a lot throughout the night as they went around the room introducing themselves and greeting other people in all sorts of roles in the company and even some other writers. Every so often, she would give him a glance from the corner of the eye after responding to praise or avoiding probing questions about herself. It was as if she was gathering courage from seeing Chat Noir at her side or even just a reminder that she was wearing a disguise like him.

Somewhere along the way, they got drinks before wandering into the crowds again and Adrien realized that, instead of unwinding, something in the pit of his stomach was painfully coiling into knots. Everything just felt too loud. Even the sound of his ring against his glass grated against his ears.

“...-oir?...Chat Noir, you okay?”

The warm contact on his hand snapped his vision back to clarity. Lady Coccinelle was looking at him in concern, her hand on top of his own. Her fingers were light and steady against his - his were still shaking, not twisting his ring around his finger as much as he was clinging onto it like death.

A rasp came out instead of an answer, the dryness of his throat and mouth suddenly hitting him. He needed to get away. Now.

Lady Coccinelle seemed to read that need in his face, lacing her arm in the crook of his elbow and guiding him back to the bar counter. Voices were still muddled all around him even as he tried to focus his brain, but each bump against the bodies around him just sent more unpleasant scrapes along his spine like a chalkboard.

He was sat down at some point, Adrien realized. He felt a faint pain in his palms and then he felt something cold against his face - no, it was against his mouth.

He could feel one hand being moved; then it was cold too.

“You back yet?”

Lady Coccinelle came into focus again. Slowly, Adrien’s gaze traced her features, from her eyes to her furrowed brow. Then his eyes slid down her shoulder and up her bent arms, where she was holding a cup of ice water to his face. One of his hands was in hers to help support it.

The room had stopped encroaching on him enough that he had the space to nod at her.

He took a careful sip and shivered at the contrast of hot and cold inside him. He cleared his throat again and looked at the bartender across the counter.

“You're Wayzz, right? Plagg said- um. He said there's a place to get away from the noise?”

Wayzz, during the whole night up until now, had been completely neutral-faced at all the antics of the people around him. That facade broke instantly once Adrien spoke up. He seemed utterly apologetic to have forgotten to be on alert; but, to be fair to Wayzz, Adrien reasoned his symptoms didn't stand out among the group of tipsy partiers.

“Take the lobby stairwell up to the roof, the door there should be open. Mind the stairs. I'll let them know where you went if they ask, don't worry.” He topped off Lady Coccinelle’s wine glass sitting next to her on the counter.

Adrien leaned his weight onto his legs, trying to pull his focus back into his body. The tingles faded as he cautiously stood up, all while fighting the weakness in his knees.

Still looking at the ground, he saw a gloved hand reach out to him.

“Ready?”

He didn't meet Lady Coccinelle’s eyes but still nodded. She carefully hooked her arm in his like earlier and picked up her glass with her free hand.

 

When they stepped through the door to the stairwell, she let go to hold his hand so they could climb the stairs properly. Adrien took the lead, still not looking at her face or letting her eyes meet his.

This could have all gone worse, but it also could have gone a lot better. The last thing he wanted to make her do was babysit him.

Floor 2. Floor 3. Floor 4.

They soon reached the door to the roof, which was already partially propped open. Adrien finally lifted his head at the feeling of fresh air and practically leaped up the last few steps.

“Chat, wait-!”

He felt the resistance in his arm and realized he was still holding onto Lady Coccinelle’s hand. She kept up the first couple steps before tripping on the last one.

Adrien stepped backwards as she stumbled forwards, pushing the door fully open with his back, getting stability from it as he caught her. Amusingly, he even helped to steady her glass of wine and they managed to keep most of it in.

They stood like that for a while, the whole event registering in their heads before they burst out laughing. Adrien helped her straighten up and, after checking for spill damage on both their outfits, they moved out of the doorway to the railing, allowing the door to shut behind them.

Adrien leaned forward and let his head hang forward. The stress ebbed out of him with each movement of his breath. Lady Coccinelle waited next to him.

“Sorry, this probably wasn't what you had in mind.”

He finally turned to face her, preparing for judgement. She only looked at him with warmth, not pity. There was a little concern left but... much less, compared to earlier.

“Don't be. I've been relying on you all night for strength, let me do the same for you.”

Adrien looked down again at the streets below. He thought about it for a second, before meeting her eyes with a grin.

“So... is it too late to say you seem to be falling for me?” He tried to hold in his laugh but it only made him smile wider.

“You're a dork.” She held an offended look on her face for only a moment before cracking into laughter with him.

“I'm your dork for tonight, my Lady.”

“I'm glad you’re my dork.” Her grin was confident.

“I-I-uh...whuh-” Adrien ducked his head down, fighting off the blush that rushed onto his face. He was supposed to be the smooth one, but she was even beating him at that! That wasn't fair! “You...you really mean that?”

His eyes darted back up to his lady beside him. She was covering her mouth with a hand and laughing again, eyes practically closed as her face scrunched up with her wide smile.

“Yeah, I do,” she managed after a moment, turning back to lean on the rail and look out at the city.

Her voice was much softer when she spoke next. “I'm actually very glad. I was really scared of tonight.”

Adrien tilted his head to look at her. The lights of the city bathed her in a golden glow as she stared down into her half empty glass. The flush of her cheeks only made her look even brighter, impossibly bright.

“You? Scared? What made you so scared?” The words came out in the wrong way, but she seemed to understand his intent. Tilting her head to each side, her long hair moved like waves while she pondered.

He couldn't help but wonder what she was seeing as she turned her eyes up to meet his with a smile.

“I meant what I said earlier. I was afraid you’d be more like the actual Chat Noir. Not really the hero part. More like…” She gestured aimlessly with her free hand. Her brow furrowed under the mask, exaggerating the expression as she pouted. “Well, more like how he turns out to be later on when you get to see the real him. He’s a jerk outside of the costume. A character trope, I guess. You’re more...real. Well, of course you’re real but...you look like you don’t have a weight on your shoulders and that’s reminding me I don’t always have to drag mine with me.”

She gave a lazy shrug to end on that note, as if she just told him which team she thought would win in the next sports game.

Adrien didn't know what to make of that comment, not with how she put her feelings that simply.

A weight gone from his shoulders, huh?

Did he really make it seem that easy?

Well, truth be told, he had the mask to thank for that. It really was a magic spell, its own kind of gentle weight reminding him that, just for one night, he wasn't Adrien Agreste. He wasn't representing anything except himself and Plagg.

People could sense when someone was looking at them, even when they weren't looking back. Someone can bore holes in the back of your head with their gaze.

Maybe a gaze also has a weight.

He was something right now. But he also wasn't a lot of things, for once.

“Well then, I’m glad I’m real and that I get to be your dork. But, uh-” Adrien scooched an inch closer to her. “What’s that about Chat Noir being a jerk? I thought he was a huge romantic, especially from that Dark Cupid chapter!”

She pushed his nose with a finger, full attention on him now. “Ah-ah, no spoilers. Not even for you.”

His eyes crossed to stare at her finger before looking back at her. “Not even for your loyal partner?” He pouted at her.

She pulled back her finger to tap her cheek in thought. “Maybe just _one_ for my dear kitten... if you promise not to tell.”

Adrien stuck out his pinky finger with one hand and crossed his chest with the other. “Won't tell a soul, cat’s honor.”

“Cross your heart?” she asked as she locked her pinky with his.

He brought their thumbs together to seal the promise. “Cross my heart, hope to die, ‘else I be akumatized.”

Adrien was more than happy at how easy it was to make her smile. Lady Coccinelle shook their interlocked hands once, giggling again.

“Well, I guess I could tell you about some of my inspiration then.”

“Oh?”

“Yup! The secret is that Ladybug’s inspiration comes from…”

She pulled him in gently by his shoulder to whisper in his ear. He shivered, her warm breath raising goosebumps across his skin.

“...my favorite mech that I have been undefeated with in Mecha Ultimate Strike 3.”

Adrien jumped back. “No way! No way you've been undefeated at that game.”

“Yeah way, I even-” She caught herself in the middle of the sentence and stopped, clearing her throat. “I bet I can take you down, no problem.”

Adrien turned to lean his side against the railing, crossing his arms smugly. “I'll take you up on that offer. Make a new gamertag and have Tikki pass it on, I'll do the same.”

“Oh? That confident, kitten? You trying to make this into a bet to get some more spoilers or something?”

 

They barely noticed the time pass between them, with the lights that flickered out below them in the city and the level of the wine in the glass being the only signs. They took turns holding the glass as they spoke, every so often remembering to take a sip and offering it to the other until it eventually emptied.

Their conversation slipped to every topic that could connect to the last. Under the gloves, her hands were calloused from crafts she would make (she seemed to be an endless fountain of talent), and his from vigorous exercise and sports. He’d been to many countries before while she visited family once when she was still small. They were both college students (this seemed to be more of a relief to her), and she prefered making gifts for everyone by hand while he secretly asked around to find out what his friends truly needed.

Adrien didn't really think about what kind of person Lady Coccinelle would be before tonight. He thought she’d be acting out a persona like he was planning to but, out here in the open, that whole pretense dissipated into the night air as soon as he caught his breath again.

It was amazing to meet someone whose talents he admired as much as his close friends. It was exhilarating to be someone else for a night. His heart had been racing the entire time and still hadn't calmed down, now fluttering at an anxious but happy pace.

It was weird how this was like a scene out of one of her books. Part of him wondered if he was dreaming from how weightless he felt, looking over the city with her next to him, arguing over who was the best Sailor Scout. (He, of course, chose Sailor Moon, but she admired a lot of qualities in Sailor Pluto). He even admitted that he and his friend wrote fanfiction as soon as he finished Lucky Strikes at Midnight. She asked him what common things were in fanfiction of her work, but only gave a sly smile and pressed her finger to her lips when he asked if any speculation was on track with canon.

There was a lull of comfortable silence. They both stood an inch apart, leaning forward on the balcony rail.

She elbowed him gently, still facing forward. “Look out there. What do you think I see?”

“Everywhere the night touches is your kingdom?”

“Hah, no, you silly cat! Well, kind of - the mask makes me feel like Ladybug right now.” She grinned at him, straightening up and posing with her hands on her hips for a moment before stretching both arms out at the view of the city. “I see light. I see that light flickering in motion, from those headlights moving below to the way people’s shadows appear and disappear as they pass by the open shop windows. People are turning them on to feel safe, to read a book, to show they’re home. They all have a purpose in being on.”

Her hands came down to smooth the red and black bodice of her dress. “That's what Ladybug’s purpose is in the story. She is the city’s light. She is the moon, she is a guiding light among the people. Someone strong and sure of everything.”

Adrien realized he had unconsciously leaned closer and brought himself back to give her space. There wasn't really any other word for her presence and her words - he could only describe it as _enchanting_.

“You’re amazing, you know that? Everything you say just becomes magic.”

Her face snapped to look at him, eyes wide in shock. He leaned back, unsure if he overstepped a boundary. “...Did I say something wrong?”

“No! No.” She scooted in even closer so that her arm was pressed against his, hand hovering over his forearm before leaving to grip the rail again. “You said something right. That’s...magic is what I've been aiming for.”

The faint sounds of the city below filled the silence that settled in between them. They both kept staring straight out, like small children peering with wonder at an exhibit in the zoo.

“Tell me what you see.” Her voice was so soft that he barely heard it. She must have noticed it too because she turned her head to meet his eyes.

“I see you,” he quipped. She narrowed her eyes at him and he shrugged in return. “I told you, I just help my friend write cheesy fanfiction.”

“Hey, that’s still writing! I wanna know. Tell me what you see.” She leaned into the railing, pressing her cheek against her fists. Her smile was wide, her eyes curious.

His stomach was doing funny flips, fluttering now with butterflies.

“I see…”

He turned back to look down at the city below. It was autumn now and, soon, winter would be approaching. The wind was calm, gently brushing strands of synthetic hair around both their faces.

He remembered for a moment that they were wearing disguises. He still felt unusually exposed and touched his mask to make sure it was still there.

“Before tonight, I saw snow,” said Adrien, his voice coming out in a low mutter.

Lady Coccinelle straightened up, leaning in just a little closer with her ear tilted towards him. He stayed facing forward, clearing his throat and starting again.

“Before tonight, I kept reading your words over and over. Not just in Lucky Strikes at Midnight, but also in The Thousand Year Hunt. I saw each scene vividly. I felt the heat encroaching when Diamond Turtle saved Celeste from the illusionist’s fire. I felt the adrenaline running through Ladybug’s veins when she was flung off the airship fighting against Rogercop. I saw the world you weaved together like falling snow that turned the everyday world you knew into a brand new wonderland. It’s like the snow was so deep, you just fall right into it with one step.”

He gathered the courage to turn his head to look at her.

“And tonight…” He could see the way the lights around them reflected off of her hair, almost clinging like snowflakes to the tips of her lashes at the edge of her mask. “Tonight, I see rain.”

The moonlight reflected on her dark blue hair like it was an endless ocean. In her eyes, he saw a vast sunny sky.

He saw those things in front of him, just like the book described Ladybug. Meeting her and speaking with her like this, just getting to know these little things about her in between small talk, it made him see rain.

Snow was her magic and writing. Rain was her laughter collecting in jars in his memory to keep. Rain was the condensation of the cup pressed to his face, bringing him back to earth when he was disassociating in the stifling room below.

It was something warm. Something that was real.

When Lady Coccinelle said it earlier, it seemed like such a simple statement, but that was the only word that came to his mind right now.

“Snow can cover the world to make it appear like something else, but the rain brings that same world to life. Right now, meeting you for the first time... it feels like I'm just sticking my head out the window, like getting rain after a long drought.” He licked his lips nervously, trying to pick his words carefully as he felt her eyes focus more on his face. “You're real. Even when you're playing another character, you still seem so real. I can feel it. All I know right now is that I want to see you again.”

He looked down again, flustered. Fingers twisted his ring around his finger. “Sorry. That was probably too cheesy. But that's what I see right now, in a way.”

She was quiet for just a beat too long. He looked up again and saw stars in her eyes.

Lady Coccinelle was staring at him in pure wonder. Her lips were parted, trying to form some kind of response before they paused.

...Was this what it was like for her? To have your words affect someone that deeply?

She caught herself a moment later, snapping awake. Even in the night, the lighting around them betrayed the red flush flooding her face.

“T-That's too cheesy, you dork.” She leaned in and shoved him with her shoulder before turning her face away.

“I warned you, my Lady! It's a good kind of cheesy at least, right?”

He meant to be teasing, leaning in close to quickly nudge her back. But as he did, she turned her head back toward him.

Adrien froze, staring at her face now only a couple inches apart from his own.

She seemed just as surprised, looking up at him but not backing away.

“...Y-Yeah, it is.” Her voice was thick in her throat.

They didn't move. He saw her eyes flick down to his lips and back up.

“Is this- are you- is...is this okay?” Adrien wasn’t even sure if he said that clearly enough. He wasn’t sure if he should wait to see if she understood him to ask again, or even if he had the courage to say it twice.

His mind began racing, panicking again, until he felt her hand move on top of his on the balcony rail.

Lady Coccinelle took a second to just look at him, considering something. She gave a silent breath of a laugh and then pressed her lips against his.

His heart was leaping out of his chest. It threatened to burn or melt from the excitement and he couldn't tell which was happening inside him.

He felt her move, long lashes ghosting against his face as her eyelids fluttered. His lips were still, he now realized, and he pushed forward.

Electricity leaped under his skin and through his body. He felt her gasp softly and, when he peeked his eyes open, he caught how hers slowly slid shut.

He shivered at how she leaned into him, lips melting against his. Every point of contact between them felt so warm and every part of him wanted to seek out more. An unsure hand came up to the side of her face, asking permission. She pressed it against her burning cheek and held it there with her own hand.

His hand grasping the rail was suddenly cold again. Her other hand shyly leaned on his chest, right over his erratic heart, as she shifted in her movements. Teeth bumped against each other and she tried to take a breath, pulling some out of his own lungs.

He felt her move away, so opened his eyes, treating himself to the sight of her completely flustered and touching her lips with one hand.

“I-I-I...wuh, um…”

Lady Coccinelle flung her hands around wildly, running her fingers through her hair and trying to grasp or hold herself but not finding a place for them to rest.

Her voice wouldn't form any coherent sounds. She shook like a soda bottle about to explode.

Lady Coccinelle ran for the stairwell door.

“Wait!”

Adrien tried to reach out for her hand - the feeling of confusion and panic felt so familiar, especially the way it jolted through his arm with his plea.

She reached the door handle first. Her sapphire eyes turned back to meet his and they were filled with so _much_.

Adrien stood frozen as she turned back to the door, grasped the handle, and tugged.

It did not budge.

“No. No no nononono.” She pulled on it with both hands, to no avail.

Adrien walked up and tried himself, but the door would not give. Lady Coccinelle shied away from him, grasping her head.

“Ah!”

Lady Coccinelle plucked out one of her ornate hair pins - this one with a ladybug at the end of it. She proudly held it up between them, but when she met his eyes her face faltered. She turned her head away.

“Tikki gave me this as a lucky charm to make me less nervous about tonight. Didn’t think that I’d actually be using it as a Lucky Charm though,” she giggled, tossing it up a short distance and snatching it out of the air.

“You know how to pick locks?” It wasn't exactly a skill he would have expected from her.

“No, do you?” She was already trying to stick the pin in the lock, wiggling it around wildly.

“...Yes?” She turned to look at him, probably with the same thought as he did. “I had a lot of extra time as a kid.” He quickly offered and held out his hand to take the pin.

Maybe this would have been an impressive skill to her if it actually worked. Even when he felt the pins inside the lock click into place, the handle turned but the door still wouldn't open. He hissed under his breath, trying again.

If it didn’t work the first time it probably wasn’t going to work the fifth, but he kept at it anyway for the sake of the writer who was wandering anywhere on the rooftop that wasn’t right next to him. She buried her face in her hands, pacing all over the place.

“Ah!” Her voice soon called out in realization.

Lady Coccinelle’s head was turned down to the ground. Adrien followed her line of sight before seeing a doorstop laying in the middle of the rooftop right by her foot.

“Ah,” he echoed.

The door was open when they got there and then he made her trip. It was now closed.

Which meant the door was being held open by the doorstop for a reason... like the door locking on its own when shut.

That was probably not up to fire code.

More importantly, that was the reason why they couldn't go back downstairs.

She refused to look at him as she came back to make one last desperate tug at the door. She seemed to come to the same conclusion. Her arms flopped to her sides in defeat, pressing her forehead against the door with a frustrated groan. “You wouldn't happen to have a phone that isn't dead, would you? I killed mine writing on it on the way here.”

“I left it at home.” He slid his back down the door to sit against it, crossing his arms.

Locked out somewhere with a ...now potential love interest and their only option was to wait together for someone to find them.

How much more anime tropey was his life going to get?

He looked up from the low angle at his partner, her pout barely visible through her curtain of hair.

“So what do we do now?” Her face was still completely flushed when she finally straightened back up.

“Lounge around here while Tikki and Plagg look for us and contemplate our place in the universe?” he suggested, shrugging.

She giggled and Adrien felt a weight ease off of him.

 

* * *

 

The door burst open with a loud bang as it swung out and whacked against the outer wall. A leg pulled back from inside the doorway and Plagg and Tikki stepped out onto the roof. Peering from the stairs was Wayzz and Zorro, the short woman now shaking out her leg from the effort.

Adrien’s fingers were still tangled in Lady Coccinelle's hair when they both jumped at the sound.

Plagg tilted his head in confusion. “...Kid, what are you doing?”

“We got bored waiting for someone to come find us,” Adrien responded, finishing one of the small braids he was working on in the writer’s hair.

Tikki and Plagg glanced at each other for a moment before the tall man remembered himself, striding forward and pulling Adrien up with a hand.

“We don't have time for that, Mirror Mirror’s been calling and ‘Phones said you were out on a run. Midnight strikes, princess.”

Plagg meant well, Adrien knew, but the way he tried to tug him along sent familiar chills down his spine. It had him instinctually yanking his hand out of the other’s grasp.

Adrien looked back at Lady Coccinelle and saw the overflowing concern in her eyes.

This wasn't the impression he wanted to leave with her.

He helped her stand and brought her hand to his lips. “See you again, my Lady?” his lips murmured against the silk.

She gaped at him before nodding slowly. He smirked at the sight of the flush rising up her face.

“Good.” With a wink, he held her hand between both of his. “Because I really think I was born to meet you.”

He turned and bolted down the stairs the same way she tried to earlier, fighting every instinct to cover his now burning face. If he was going to be a weeb, he had to commit to it.

Was that a better impression to leave? He wasn't exactly sure. The last thing he wanted, though, was to leave the same one he did back when he first started going to public school with his friends.

He barely remembered to grab his jacket from the coat rack near the door, stuffing himself into it before sitting on a bench outside to catch his breath.

Plagg showed up not long after, looking irritated. He didn't actually say a word until they sat down in the subway car heading back to his place.

“‘Phones used your credit card somewhere far to sell that you took a break to pick up dinner on your way home from your run, make sure you thank him.” The man’s head lolled around on his shoulders as he somewhat straightened in his seat. “Also, what were you thinking with that cheese you pulled earlier? I mean, it landed pretty well with your little lady, but you're going to make me yack already.”

Adrien chuckled at that, reassured that he didn't weird her out with that scene.

“I don't know. I wasn't thinking.”

“Good.” His manager grinned and laid back against the seats. “By the way, you got lip gloss on the corner of your mouth there.”

Plagg cracked up as Adrien furiously rubbed at his lips, face burning.


	5. Marinette: Stop Using Alya's Love Life in Your Novels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not fair,” Marinette mumbled into Alya’s shirt, hoping in vain that if she buried herself into Alya’s bosom, and if her best friend hugged just tight enough, her brain would finally shut up. Either that or death would have mercy on her poor, conflicted soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for taking much longer than I usually do, but I wasn't really in a positive environment after the last chapter went up, and then the year got a little worse. I got it done though! So here's to more chaos and slight crack on its way.
> 
> Comments? Questions? Find me at crispypata on tumblr like always!

“It’s not fair,” Marinette mumbled into Alya’s shirt, hoping in vain that if she buried herself into Alya’s bosom, and if her best friend hugged just tight enough, her brain would finally shut up. Either that or death would have mercy on her poor, conflicted soul.

Both Marinette and Alya were lying down on her living room floor, tangled in the pile of sheets they slept in. Alya had arrived late the night before by train, but Marinette could not fall asleep and eventually the two moved to the floor since there wasn’t room for both of them to lie down on the couch.

It’s been been a week since the publishing party and nothing from that night sat easy on her mind. She couldn’t even glance at the color green without seeing his eyes - all her plants had been banished to the windowsill outside her bedroom window.

“Alya. It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair, Mari?” her best friend mumbled against her hair, finally waking up.

“He’s not fair. His dumb gold hair and his dumb big grin and his dumb words…” Marinette’s voice degraded into a frustrated groan.

Alya’s body shook with silent laughter. She petted Marinette’s hair softly, still hugging her close with the other arm.

Marinette was… a lot of things right now. A lot of weird, complicated emotions that jabbed at her no matter where she turned to look or even when her hand _skimmed_ over a certain fabric surface. That didn’t even make sense - she was wearing gloves the whole night! How could she even tell that his vest was made from cotton shirting that easily just from touching it once?

She remembered that she guided him by the arm twice, her bare arm keeping him close in case she had to catch him while he was still out of sorts.

It was going to be near impossible to work with at least half the materials she had in her bedroom right now. When Tikki was talking about enchanting people with their words, she wasn't expecting the spell to bounce back and curse her in return.

What even came over her that made her act the way she did, she didn't even know.

“Mari, any longer with my girls and you're gunna have to start paying rent.” Alya gently pulled away from the girl in despair and patted the floor around them to find her glasses.

“You know who’s really intruding? Chat Noir,” Marinette grumbled, turning her face into her pillow.

“It went that badly? Do I gotta set him straight?” Alya sat up, punching her fist in her other hand, ready to avenge her best friend.

Marinette grabbed the blanket and covered her head with it. “...no.”

“What do you mean? Then it went well?” Alya's question was met with the bundle under the blanket rolling away until it became a blanket burrito and hit the couch.

“Do you want to talk about it now?”

The blanket burrito rolled side-to-side, bumping into the couch again.

“Do you want to talk about it later, after we get through today?”

The blanket burrito slowly curled into itself, nodding.

Alya scooted closer and patted the blanket burrito empathetically. “Wanna figure out the novel in the meantime while we get ready?”

The blanket burrito froze stiff-straight and yelled in realization.

All morning Marinette tried her hardest to not think of anything related to her writing. She didn’t want to think of it. She didn’t want to think about Chat Noir or Ladybug or anything having to do with their place in the second novel.

Especially not when Alya just made her remember that she was outlining a smut scene with Tikki on the way to the party.

Marinette’s initial burst of agony dulled to a groan as she felt Alya push her to unravel her from her cocoon. The ceiling and her best friend’s concerned expression came back into view with one final flop onto her back.

“Okay, let's just get ready and see where we can go from there, that sound good?” Alya helped pull her back up.

“One step at a time sounds _really_ good right now,” the writer admitted, rubbing her face with both hands and taking a deep breath.  


Her feelings left her in peace long enough until Alya came into the bathroom while she was finishing her shower.

“So, want me to look at what you have down so far if you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Laptop’s on my desk!” Marinette called.

Might as well get this over with. It's not like she actually wrote any of the smut yet, but the bullet points were there, underneath the build-up. They were the suggestions Tikki tossed out on the way to the party.

Ah, right. Marinette winced at the thought of the caps lock placeholder text she left in the document, saying things like _‘AHAHAAA. DON’T FORGET TO TALK ABOUT EMOTIONS HERE. Don't keep skipping to the next action, let things stew’_. Alya has heard her mutter things like this out loud while writing, but they probably broke the immersion reading it as-is.

When she was done getting dressed, she found Alya laying down on the couch in an odd position with the laptop pushed almost into her face with her knees curled close to her chest to support it.

Marinette was only a little concerned about her laptop’s safety in that position (then again, she herself was the one prone to damaging other people’s things), when Alya roughly grabbed the laptop with both hands on each side of the screen. She pulled it closer to her face, the mutter of “oh my god, oh my goddddd” barely audible.

“Everything looking okay there, Alya?” Marinette laughed uneasily, remembering only seeing a similar reaction when Alya read the conclusion of A Thousand Year Hunt for the first time.

The redhead swung herself to sit upright. “Are you kidding me? Mari, this is going to be gold when it's done! I've been waiting for you to get to this part for a long while now!” Alya gripped the laptop again, now giving her a look of betrayal. “I thought you said Ladybug was going to confront his love for her and clear things up, not make it worse!”

Marinette took the laptop and flopped onto the couch next to Alya, glancing at the number of comments her best friend had left in the proofreading mode with another laugh. “Well, you'll have to see why later. Your turn to shower... unless you want to write the smut for me,” she teased, nudging Alya to stand up with a palm.

Her friend got up begrudgingly, still wallowing in betrayal. Marinette took off the towel wrapped around her head - with hair that short, she didn't actually need it - and handed it to Alya.

Alya snatched the towel and threw it over her shoulder. “I’m just a little too ace for that, remember? Maybe if I had all the stuff Tikki sent you, but that’s your job, LC. You can't just leave me hanging from hot makeouts with bullet points.”

When the bathroom door clicked shut down the hallway, Marinette flopped her head back to stare at the ceiling, letting out a long breath as her face twisted into a grimace. She really didn't want to look at what she had done before the party for many reasons. But as she looked again, she couldn’t help the whine that rattled in her as her discomfort grew instantly out of nowhere.

 

_Ladybug climbed the fire escape, easily scaling up into the open window covered in black curtains. The apartment that served as their hideout when they needed to escape was usually lit in their absence to give the sense that someone actually lived there; but when the thick curtains are drawn closed and no light peeked through, that was the signal that someone was home._

_She never asked Chat Noir how he paid for their place without her help and he never offered any answers. There was no need to explore beyond the other closed doors in the hallway, nor did she have the curiosity._

_It didn't take her long to shut the window and make her way to the large bed in the corner of the room, the layout so familiar that each step was sure and silent in the darkness. Every movement was routine, from the way she gently sat at the edge of the bed and ghosted her gloved thumb over his lips, to the way his hand sluggishly reached out from under the sheets to grasp hers. She felt how his bare fingertips softly stroked against her palm to feel the texture of her costume._

_Gently, he sat up and pulled her into his lap, letting her straddle him. His hands rested on her thighs, making small circles with his thumbs. Her arms hung loosely around his neck by the wrists, tapping her fingers against his back as she waited for his first move._

_His mouth met her neck, softly kissing the pulse racing under her skin that gave away her anticipation._

_“Too bad, I think I prefer your fangs.” Her struggle to stay in control was showing in her voice._

_“Next time then, my Lady.” Chat’s teeth scraped down the column of her neck, leaving small nips as her head tilted back to give him more room between her costume’s collar._

_With a whisper between their parted lips, her magic came undone and crackled up her body with a pink glow. Their eyes stayed firmly shut and Chat hungrily took her mouth as the fading energy sent pleasant shivers through both of them._

_Bare nails raked up his naked back to tangle into his long mane of hair. His back arched from her touch, their tongue and lips breaking apart as he groaned deeply. Chat moved his hands up from her thighs to feel the edge of her shirt before running up her arms to cup her face. His lips pressed against the bridge of her nose and kissed slowly over each eyelid and up each cheekbone in adoration of the only inches of skin he couldn't know as intimately as the rest of her._

_He was gentle and loving in his attention in a way that gripped her heart with a searing shock. Ladybug’s breath stuttered when she felt him move away to take her lips again and she tilted her head up to fleetingly kiss the corner of his eye._

_Her lover froze for only a second before she guided his hands to slide up underneath her shirt and kissed his lips, deepening it._

 

  * __Partially clothed, cowgirl, she's dominant this time to focus on the lust part of their relationship__


  * _Tikki suggests that LB does this to try and convince CN that a physical relationship is what she wants without having to say it, doesn't get conveyed in the end because he convinces her to stay after._


  * _Orgasm denial maybe? Look up the blogs that Tikki sent for reference_



 

The abrupt change in text format was funny enough to take off some of the edge of Marinette’s apprehension.

Marinette closed the laptop and fell back to lie down on the couch, breathing slowly. Well, it wasn’t due to Tikki for a while. Alya would have to wait too until Marinette was good and ready to confront that beast.

Today was another matter to face altogether.

* * *

 

It was like returning to the scene of the crime, a part of her mind reminded her. Standing out front of the Jade Dragon with Alya to wait for the boys felt strangely similar and just as unnerving - seriously, of all places for Alya and Nino to pick, it had to be here?

Unlike the night of the party, Marinette had much less to hide behind - it was even warmer than she expected autumn to be, so a romper with leggings and flats ended up as her outfit for this commemorative day.

‘Commemorative’…? The words her thoughts came up with made this seem like a much bigger deal than it was. But it _was_ a big deal - how could seeing close friends that you haven't kept in contact with in two years _not_ be a big deal?

This is okay. You'll be fine, Marinette. You can do this. You’re here to meet up with them again and to celebrate Alya and Nino’s anniversary.

She heard Nino’s voice first, calling their names. Alya’s hand squeezed hers in reassurance and they both turned around.

The sight of Adrien’s now short hair, swept back messily, only made Marinette squeeze back even tighter. The memory of Chat’s long, wavy bangs were quickly forced out of her mind.

But...why did Adrien look just as surprised seeing her too? He shook his head a little and smiled back at her warmly before she could read him.

Adrien cleared his throat. “...Long time, no see! I like the new cut.” He gestured with a hand around his nape.

“Yeah, it looks great on you!” Marinette said. The puzzled look on his face made her realize, “Oh, wait, you mean mine? Right, I almost forgot. I started cutting it like this after university kicked in.” She laughed nervously. “But I really like yours too! You look great with any style, really!”

Alya laughed loudly, snapping their attention back to the couple. “Looks like all of us got a lot to catch up on.”

They all quickly made their way to a booth, with Marinette seated next to Alya and across from Adrien. She caught how Alya waggled her eyebrows to Nino while tilting her head towards Marinette and Adrien. Annoyed, she nudged Alya’s leg with her own under the table.

Looked like neither of them were willing to drop the wingman idea after all this time. When the server came around to take their orders, Marinette shot Alya a warning look while handing back the menu.

The last thing she wanted was to make things between them even _more_ awkward. _Again_.

...Well, it wasn’t that it was awkward because of emotions, she mused, half-listening to Nino explain to Alya their plan for the day and half-watching Adrien scroll through his phone. It was more that she was already awkwardly waiting in anticipation.

Nino turned back to her. “So, Mari, where’ve you been hiding for the last two years? It's like you dropped off the face of the earth!”

And there it was.

Alya interjected first, waving a hand in the air. “You wouldn't believe how much work Marinette has been doing! After the break-in, she buried herself with commissions to replace everything, that's all.”

Marinette elbowed her in the side a little too late.

“What?!” both the boys exclaimed.

“Alya, I kind of didn't tell them…,” she muttered helplessly.

Nino leaned in while Adrien seemed to still be processing the thought. “When did this happen? Were you okay?”

She shrunk back with a sigh. “I was fine, it was my fault. I just forgot to lock my parents’ truck while I was moving in on my own. They took my laptop and some of my sewing equipment but I’ve already replaced everything.”

“You could have asked for help with it, you know,” Adrien said. He looked up as a server brought them their drinks and helped distribute them.

“No way.” Marinette shook her head as she slid the drink closer to herself. “I could never ask that of you two. It was my fault and my responsibility.”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFT!”

Someone across the room loudly spat out their drink and a glass broke. Everyone's heads turned towards the sound to the other end of the restaurant…

...Only for Marinette to see Tikki beating her chest while coughing and Plagg shouting as he tried to rub out whatever she spat into his eyes.

The writer was barely able to cover her mouth in time to muffle her surprised yelp.

Tikki caught her breath and glanced over at the group across the room before she turned back to Plagg, nearly yelling, “You can't just—!”

She interrupted herself, falling silent before pulling him close by the front of his shirt to whisper in his ear.

Plagg seemed confused at Tikki’s words, freeing himself from her grasp, muttering at her while straightening his shirt. She slapped his arm, peeking at Marinette’s table again before mouthing something to Plagg in a slow and enunciated manner.

Whatever Tikki said to him finally seemed to hit, as he glanced over at their table with wide eyes.

Recognizing eyes.

Marinette gripped Alya’s hand tightly under the table between them. Alya held back just as tightly to help steady her best friend’s shaking.

Marinette could see Tikki trying to not look their way as she turned Plagg’s head roughly to face hers. Tikki took her hand back and, while she silently argued with Plagg, her hand made a quick ‘shoo’ motion. Then, she turned her palm and brought it slowly up, before turning it over and lowering it just as slowly.

Breathe. Tikki was telling her to breathe.

“Mari, wanna go to the bathroom with me?” Alya stood up and tugged on her friend’s arm, not giving her the chance to answer before dragging her along.

 

Once they were out of sight, Nino lifted his foot off of Adrien’s. The incessant tapping of his foot against the tile floor instantly continued, even as Adrien tried to lean forward with his hands pushing down his knees. Adrien tried to empty his mind and stare down at the table. All he had to do was breathe.

He cracked after three seconds and whipped his head to glare at his manager across the room.

Plagg looked down at his phone, typing at the keys before putting it down on the table. He leaned his cheek on a hand and looked at Adrien expectantly.

Adrien’s phone buzzed. He and Nino glanced at the screen:

 

_[Leave.]_

 

Adrien glared back at his manager who helpfully pointed at the door with his thumb.

 

_[Why are you here???]_

 

Plagg just shrugged at him without even looking back up. Tikki took Plagg’s phone and glanced at the message he sent. She scoffed, smacked his shoulder, and turned to look at Adrien with her arms pressed tight to her body, fists tucked under her chin.

...why did she look so worried?

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at him.

Adrien tilted his head to the side, unsure what Plagg did to have her apologize to a stranger—

‘Sorry,’ she repeated, slower this time. ‘I know you’re Chat.”

Nino grasped Adrien’s shoulder, snapping Adrien’s mind back into focus again.

“It's okay,” Adrien muttered, partly to reassure himself.

A waiter already came by to clean up the mess at Plagg’s table, talking now to Tikki. Tikki curtly said something and left a fold of euros on the table before dragging Plagg out of the bar by the arm.

Adrien’s phone rang a moment after - the caller ID a cat emoji. He and Nino went out into the lobby to the stairwell. Once the door closed behind them, he answered on speakerphone.

“I'm really sorry, Plagg just said something as an offhanded comment that you returned to the scene of the crime and there were just some things I already knew—” Adrien had never heard Tikki’s voice so panicked before.

“Wait, you knew more about normal me? Was _she_ there too? In the same room?”

Tikki seemed to fight with herself before starting again. “Look, I'm really bad at lying in this kind of situation. You deserve to know who knows about your situation. Otherwise, I would respect your wish to stay secret as much as Lady Coccinelle.”

There was some fumbling on the line. A gruff voice answered now, apology underlying his tone. “My bad, kid. We’ll head out, so don't worry about anything else. Enjoy your day out. You haven't seen your friends in a while, right? That reminds me, I'm gunna give Tikki that username you sent me a couple days ago. See ya!”

Adrien didn't even get the chance to protest before the line hung up. He looked up and met Nino’s eyes, his face just as equally lost at what to do now.  


Marinette looked up at the door and saw Adrien and Nino stepping back into the bar, both returned from the building lobby. Adrien was clutching his phone so hard in his hand that his knuckles turned white.

“Is everything alright?”

Her voice broke the hardened edges of his face. He looked up at her, relaxing into a smile.

“It’s nothing, just some modeling stuff. Sorry if we kept you waiting,” he said as he and Nino sat back down in their booth.

Something didn't feel right to Marinette, but their food was delivered to the table soon enough and the topic was dropped.

The four of them fell into old conversation so easily - Alya might have a chance to host a live interview at her news internship soon, Nino was working on a new remix that he’ll need Marinette’s help with, new tv shows, music, and just reminiscing. Marinette tried to steer away from any topics that might lead to the books, instead telling stories about how, in the past summer, so many people commissioned tutus for a music festival that her bedroom floor was _still_ covered in glitter.

She noticed that Adrien didn't offer up much besides model work and school. Every once in a while, he glanced at his phone with a faint frown.

The distance between them felt a lot longer than the table in between.

 

* * *

 

The two pairs parted ways after finishing their drinks and getting ice cream. Alya and Nino headed off to continue their date, which left Marinette and Adrien on their own to make their way back to the bus station.

Conversation without Alya and Nino to act as a buffer somehow became impossible.

Maybe she should just figure out what’s changed since they last hung out. She tried to fish around in her memories for more safe topics.  “So...I remember seeing you got a moped a while back? How was that?”

Adrien practically jumped at the question, eyes filled with some kind of terror as he snapped his head to look at her. He was silent for a few moments, searching for something in her face. Whatever he was looking for he didn’t find, now letting out a strained breath before rubbing the back of his neck.

“Er, yeah! It’s fun! Real easy to get around. It’s great.” Even his practiced publicity smile was off.

Marinette watched him for another moment before looking back at the ground again, worry settling in her stomach.

Shouldn’t it be easier than this? Old friends were supposed to click back together and catch up as if things never left off, weren't they?

“So, Marinette? Can I ask you something?”

She almost tripped over her own feet when Adrien’s voice broke the silence.

“Yeah! Sure, of course!”

“What about me made you too nervous to talk to me at first?”

Their walking slowed to a stop and Marinette turned around to look at Adrien. He seemed genuinely worried, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

“It…” She trailed off without knowing what to say.

“Maybe I should have phrased it differently.” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, looking away. “I met someone new the other day and I'm afraid I messed things up with first impressions like I did with you. It's just me being prepared, I guess.”

These words sunk into Marinette’s mind heavily, her brain trying to process so many careful edges at once. She never really explained why she got so tongue-tied around him, and—

...Did she even want to tell him?

She had spent so long being satisfied with her affection from afar. Even then, it wasn't that “far” when she was by his side as a close friend. He spent a lot of time at the bakery in the past. On (supervised) visits to Adrien’s house, they all hung out in his room and played video games. With a well-earned sense of satisfaction, she remembered mastering almost every game he had to ensure the high score lists had much more than just his name listed on them.

They were close enough that when his father was away on business, Adrien convinced Nathalie to let him join them for sleepovers. Close enough that he broke down in front of her in her room, thanking her for making room in her home and her family for him. She trusted him with her dreams, and he trusted her with his insecurities. Through those years, not a small victory went by where they didn’t cheer and congratulate each other because they knew what fears they overcame.

Admittedly, there were still things they kept from each other even with that strong trust. No one can know absolutely everything about someone else, of course. But the fact that small, random pieces came about during midnight phone calls or a picture sent of something along their day meant that Marinette knew a lot about Adrien. The idolship she had back in collège was easily dismantled early on.

Yet, there was a weird tension in the air since they left the bar. She _knew_ so much about him then, but how much of that was still the same today? Was he more or less the same person she fell for?

Telling him would only make even more of a mess of things. Marinette hated lying, but nothing he said necessarily pointed to it being the exact emotional situation she ended up in. Years ago, maybe she would have been more protective of Adrien, but there weren't any warning signs and she didn't have a right to him anyway.

So she wouldn't lie, she just wouldn't tell the whole truth.

“I guess it was partly getting off on the wrong foot, but…”

In the pressure of that moment, Marinette couldn't figure out how to gracefully skirt around the issue.

“...It was more something on my part, it didn't have to do with what you could have done better,” she said carefully.

“I see.”

Adrien started walking ahead again, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Marinette followed behind, trying to keep up with his fast pace.

She wanted to follow up and say something else, maybe offer more advice. But, by the time she was able to catch up to his side, it felt like the moment had already passed.

They continued on in silence for another street, both of their heads turned to the ground ahead of them. She glanced to her side, seeing Adrien's brows furrowing deep in thought.

“...Can I ask you something else?” Adrien’s voice was much softer this time.

Marinette laughed uneasily, now sure there was something wrong with her answer. “Adrien, you don't have to ask me permission. Just ask the question already.”

“Sorry, it's a habit.” He straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Are you still as busy with commissions and everything?”

“No! Everything’s better now!” Marinette paused, remembering herself. Right, stay in control here. “I mean, I’m still a little busy with university and things but I won’t drop off the face of the earth again, I promise.”

Adrien twisted the silver ring he always wore around his finger, pursing his lips in thought.

That control was quickly slipping between her fingers at the sight, pushing back thoughts that were what she wanted to hear him ask instead what he actually might.

“A… model friend of mine needs an outfit made and I know you do such amazing designs. So I was wondering if I could give him your number to talk about a commission?”

Only the corner of her mouth twitched downwards before she reinforced her smile. She ignored how the quick pattering of her heart suddenly stilled.

“Sure, I can do that!” Marinette insisted, part to herself and part in answer. “My number is still the same.”

They stopped at the street corner before the bus station, both aware that this was where they split ways to head home.

Adrien looked down at his watch and then up the road. “Great, thanks! Um...my bus is going to be here any minute, but I guess I'll see you around?”

Marinette noticed how he had his foot behind him already ready to pivot around to leave. “Yeah, I'll be seeing you.”

She looked up at his face, seeing the way his head tilted forward in habit. As if he was trying to hide behind long hair that wasn’t there anymore.

When was the last time she saw him behave like this?

The distance that had grown in their absence couldn't be more apparent and she didn't know how to fix it. He was closed off, like so long ago.

They stood there in awkward silence for a beat before Adrien waved and began to cross the street.

She didn't want to say goodbye like this.

“Adrien, wait!” her voice slipped out before she realized it.

Adrien stopped in his tracks in the middle of the crosswalk and whipped around to look back at her. The car in the street honked sharply, forcing Adrien to run back to her side of the sidewalk.

Marinette slapped her hands over her mouth at the scenario before stuffing one hand into her bag. “My bad,” she muttered, flustered.

Adrien shook his head. “It's my fault for stopping like that. Did you need something?”

“Actually…” Digging into her bag, she found the hairpin Tikki gave her for luck. She closed her fingers around it, summoning the confidence to clear her voice of nerves. “I want to catch up with you again, if you're free soon.” The last bit of breath left her lungs, turning into a quiet, “I miss you.”

She ended up admitting that truth. Despite everything else in collège and lycée, they’d eventually grown closer as friends; it came to the point where Marinette was no longer nervous speaking to him. She genuinely felt guilty that she didn't find the time to maintain contact with him or Nino or many of their other friends after getting caught up in the writing business. Phone and text tag slowed to a stop at some point and Marinette felt like she could have done something to prevent that.

Keeping this secret was kind of lonely despite having her parents, Tikki, and Alya in on it. She probably missed out on some important things in her friends’ lives while she was so busy.

The way she saw surprise strike his eyes at her words only made all those guilty feelings even worse.

As her heart sunk, his face lit up - breaking into a smile that echoed painfully in her heart. It was so familiar to her, even years after that rainy day.

“I really missed you too, Marinette.” His grin warmed his face with a glow that made her pulse pick up again, gentler this time.

She felt a little silly at how the beginnings of tears prickled in her eyes but she could only mirror his grin.

“So...I'll text you then?” Marinette’s hand left her bag and she folded her hands over each other. Rocking gently on her feet, she looked up at him and didn’t mind for once the flush she knew was starting on her face.

“I’ll be waiting for it.” Adrien looked to the side, seeing the bus coming down the street still a distance away.

Marinette also spotted it, sighing quietly in defeat. When she looked back at him, he had his arms out wide, waiting for her response.

“I told you, you don’t need to ask for everything,” she muttered, burying her face in his shoulder.

He hugged her tightly, head leaned down near her ear. She nearly shivered at how softly he spoke. “Sorry. I’ve just been nervous. You don’t seem as comfortable around me anymore, so I didn’t want to intrude. Thanks, Marinette.”

She didn’t get the chance to respond - the bus was almost there and Adrien gave her one last squeeze before bolting across the street again.

Marinette stayed there, watching as he got on the bus and fumbled down the aisle to plop down in the only open window seat left. The bus slowly began to move and Adrien shot her a two-fingered salute, grinning widely. Marinette covered her mouth with a knuckle, letting giggles float out of her between her teeth in the same, infectious smile before she waved back at him.

They didn’t break eye contact until the distance took him out of her view. Only then did she lower her waving hand. It came down to lay over her heart and, for the first time in the last few weeks, Marinette relished in the way she was feeling.

Her chest felt like a hearth; the warmth was inviting and calm and familiar.

It had only been two years and Adrien looked only a little different, so why did it feel as refreshing as if she hadn’t seen him in a hundred years?

She quietly laughed at the comparison, but it felt like the right word: a hearth. A home.

That fire - the one that made her flail and leap as if the floor was lava or even hot coals whenever he was around - had burst back to life in her without sputtering even once, just because she saw him again.

Marinette began her walk home, still absorbed in her thoughts.

Adrien to her was rain, he would always be her rain. But, at the same time, she could only describe these feelings in her as fire and warmth. It seemed so impossible to think that rain could cause fire...there was no logical way to pair the two and Marinette knew that Tikki would just chalk it up to “that magic”.

She tried not to get too metaphorical since the Miraculous novels were one thing and her real life another, but she didn’t even notice until she was back in her room that the color green didn’t bother her as much as it did this morning. It kind of felt like all that effort spent in the last week to bottle up every conflicting feeling she had kind of went to waste.

Not in the way that the dam holding everything broke, but maybe in the way that she was so afraid this morning that a light trickle of rain could be the force that would break it.

A silly thought, in retrospect.

Marinette dumped all her things on the floor and went back to the living room to pick up her laptop. The document to her outline was still open. It too no longer caused stabs of hesitation and nerves through her body.

She tabbed down to the part of the outline where Bridgette begins to fall for Félix instead of Chat Noir and stared at the short, vague bullet points. Marinette’s fingers held down the delete key and she began to type.

No, green didn’t confuse her anymore. Maybe specifically her Chat’s green eyes and the way his long, gold bangs fell over them echoed a feeling she still couldn’t place. But the green of Adrien’s eyes ignited a different feeling, one she knew like each stitch in her bag.

Her own fire. Her own magic. That's what writing this was all about in the end, right?

Marinette was sure Alya would have a lot to say about her date with Nino when she got back to the apartment. However, just this once, Marinette began to write the scene without using her best friend as a main reference.

She always thought first with her head. Thinking with her heart turned her limbs to jelly and her words into garble.

It was about time she sorted through through all these thoughts. There wasn’t need anymore for that dam she put up after Lady Coccinelle and Chat Noir parted ways that night.

She would talk it out with Alya maybe tomorrow morning. First, Marinette decided, in order to talk about it, at least some of those feelings needed a name. She didn't know what they were, but she did know for sure what they weren't.

  


Alya came back to the apartment in the early hours of the next morning and found Marinette asleep on the floor, her laptop sitting open right by her face. The redhead shook her head and threw a blanket from the couch on the sleeping girl before picking up the laptop to shut it. Her fingers pressed on the keys in the process and the screen lit up.

The outline’s page counter showed four more pages than before.


End file.
